GR Infotech

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  • UNCC charlotte project – Tough challenges to team

    UNCC charlotte project – Tough challenges to team

    GRInfotech team got an tough deadline project to complete last week (February 19 2019). It involves adding a few web pages with more than 1000+ charity listings and adding credit card transactions, admin backends to view the details. The launch date is fixed so we have only 24-48 hours to complete the entire project.
    Our client called up and asked whether GRInfotech team will be able to take up this challenging job. The technical team evaluated the project work and the project seems to be easier. But the deadline of 24-48 hrs that´s more challenging tasks.
    We immediately deployed 4 programmers and split the work and done all the integration all nights and delivered the same.
    The client is happy that we are able to jump in within short notice 2 hrs and completed the work.
    The day we had launched and as usual there are more changes coming in and the team is able to deal all the issues and make the launch a great success event.
    We had done coding approximately 100 hrs within 48 hrs (2days) time frame with 4 programmers. Every one is happy on the weekend and waiting for the Monday project launch !!

  • Client Appreciation

    Client Appreciation

    We are very much exicted to receive an excellent feedback for one of the project we had delivered on January 2019. Edward is very much happy and he has given appreciation to the team where we had put night and day effort to make the project successful …

  • 40,000+ hours on Upwork – celebrating Achivements

    40,000+ hours on Upwork – celebrating Achivements

    GRInfotech team crossed  40,000+ hours on Upwork on February 2019.

    GRInfotech Details on Odesk

    This has been a major achievement for GRInfotech and in the past 4 years with odesk, we have done lot of projects which includes
    CMS (mainly on Joomla, Drupal)
    E-Commerce
    Team-site
    Zend framework
    Yii Frameowrk
    Authorize.net, Paypal, Sagepay transactions
    Web designing
    Please review our portfolio projects on our site for more information.
    The team had done excellent coding and its not the hours we done.
    The key point is with so much work we are able to maitain the quality of work and that´s why we are ranked 4.8 out of 5 on average on all projects and most of the project with 5 star ratings.
    This clearly shows the team is on high enthusiasm to do more projects and we all geared up for next challenging projects !!

  • Software QA Testing

    Software QA Testing

    Why do we test?

    1. To make informed decisions about expected quality when releasing software
    2. To guide requirements elicitation, by identifying (simple to understand) execution scenarios. 3. To guide the design of the software that we create.

     

    How we test our software?

    Test Execution

    • In modern software development, we release often
    • Releasing often implies testing often, Automate test execution as much as possible
    • Build a testing system aimed at exercising the system under test and verifying the observed behavior.

    Test Design

    • Test design begins at the start of your project
    • Decide which (of the infinitely many possible) test cases to create
    • Maximize information gain
    • Minimize cost

    Test strategy

    • A systematic approach to arrive at test cases
    • Targeting specific types of faults
    • Until a given adequacy criterion is achieved.

     

    What do we test?

    • Different levels of granularity
    • Unit testing ,Integration testing , System testing
    • Functionality (old / new), Security and Performance

     

    Software testing is all about making trade-offs. It becomes easier with experience, for instance strategies, patterns and processes are codified experience. It helps in analyzing successes/failures and report on those, propose implement and evaluate novel testing strategies. To be a successful software QA engineer, one should be able to reproduce hundreds and even thousands of users in terms of different interactions as well as developers weakest points. Ensuring the quality is a norm for any organization which is willing to scale up and build reputation. This can be attained by understanding different methodologies of software testing approaches and types. The main strategies that software testing build on top of can be understood from Figure 1.

    Figure 1  QA Engineering Roadmap

    The aforementioned strategies should be used by software tester and developer to ensure the proper workflow for a product. Moreover, this provides an overview of the role of QA engineer in software development lifecycle. Now let’s focus on Testing aspect!

    The very first layer of testing which is manual testing effort is depicted below.

    Figure 2  Manual Testing Roadmap

    is an essential aspect, more of a  skill that one need to develop, grow and pay attention to. Troubleshooting Determining the exact root cause for the problem will solve multiple issues as well as saving development time.

     

    So what’s all about automation testing?

    Automation Testing is the latest and modern way of testing to get rid of duplicated workload. The automation testing roadmap in Figure 3 provides a complete overview.

    Figure 3 Automation Testing Roadmap

    There is a shift towards automated testing, for example Mercury Interactive a significant player in automated testing announced partnership with major security testing companies, assisting them by supplying app vulnerability detection tools. Does this denote QA specialists will become security pros? Rather the contrary. We anticipate to view more integrated methods allowing QA testers to remain with automatic testing, without the need to understand the underlying security technologies. we shall probably notice that a shift towards some kind of workflow in which the owners of security procedures make the ideal tests and also the QA professionals execute and measure towards those tests.

    We also ought to expect you’ll watch QA teams proceed in technical testing into areas of compliance testing as well. For instance, for compliance with assorted state and national privacy legislation, QA teams could determine which web pages do not reference a solitude policy or that pages leak sensitive information in the URL of a form entry.

    More theory!

    Developers need to have a good testing strategy and be confident in the code they ship. Ideally QA testers should be either optional or working on developing, running and maintaining automated and integration testing. A good rule of thumb is when a QA tester finds a bug, developer should write a unit test before fixing the bug and then make it pass with the fix. Let’s try to understand the common types of defects in software.

    Common Bugs:

    Business Logic, Security bugs, regression bugs, performance and accessibility bugs, UI and integration bugs.

    As seen earlier in the roadmap, two common ways to approach testing as a user and developer are white box and black box testing.

    White box testing is when we inspect the source code and verify whether it works according to the specifications. Blackbox testing is done when we don’t have access to the source code and only external interface produced by the code.

    Test Pyramid

    The usage of test pyramid is to illustrate that unit tests are easy to write. Integration tests that are expensive, to reduce this end to end tests are employed. If an end to end test catches a bug then it denotes something is wrong in unit or integration test.

     

    Figure 4  Test Pyramid

    Test Levels and Types

    Unit Testing : Fast, low-level tests with small footprint  written by developers to test stability of isolated units of code.

    Integration Testing: Verifying if how two or more components of modules integrate

    System Testing: Known as end to end testing, where unit and integration tests are testing parts of the system, while this one is targeting the system as a whole.

    Acceptance Testing: System is tested for acceptability. Evaluate the system compliance with business requirements and assess if it is acceptable for delivery

    Test types

    Functional testing is using software to check if its behavior matches the expectations. Nonfunctional testing focuses on usability, reliability, maintainability and other attributes. It answers the “how” question, for example function’s performance when it returns a specific value.

    Performance testing is self explanatory. It checks how fast the application loads, how responsive it is, and its reliability under high load. Security testing should be done by security specialists. It can also be performed as an audit. It’s highly likely for e-commerce websites to undergo security testing on the regular basis and have random audits. Regression testing checks if new changes to the system have not broken existing functionality or caused old bugs to reappear. It’s done by re-running all tests on the system. Smoke testing focuses only on the most important functions work. This testing is performed to make sure the system is stable enough for users to do basic actions (like search for hotels or log in with email/password). It’s usually done right after production deploy to check if the server is running and everything looks okay. Smoke testing can be part of continuous deploy cycle.

     

     

    In a nutshell the role requirements of a QA engineer includes, the first step is to analyse bugs in the software with a aim of determining the source. Analyze why and how did a defect find a way into the software. The second step is to define a set of actions and procedures to avoid appearance of same bugs in the future. In this regard, define a set of guidelines and standards to prevent this type of failure in future, improve the quality of requirements by creating a checklist of what good requirements should cover. Understand the processes and structure in order to analyse and improve software quality.

    Conclusion:

    Software development is a cumbersome process which involves specialists from various arenas. Quality Assurance is an arena which shadows software development, starting with collection of information, requirements and ending with testing rollback scenarios. So the ultimate aim has to be able to detect errors as soon as possible, analyse them, create a process to reduce or eliminate the bugs. In turn, this helps in reducing costs, and supports quality. Hence it is a smart business decision to invest in effective QA software and ideal to have a team of reliable QA engineers.

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  • SIGNIFICANCE OF ANALYTICS IN SOLAR PV INDUSTRY

    SIGNIFICANCE OF ANALYTICS IN SOLAR PV INDUSTRY

    “Data really powers everything that we do!
    Harness the data to harness the power from the sun.”

    The aforementioned quotations incites curiosity and forms the motivation for this blog. The world as a whole is at the tipping point of transition from extensive use of fossil fuels to using renewable energy to generate the energy that we need to lead our lives. Over the years, this shift has been constantly increasing because of the targets set by several countries across the globe to generate electricity from renewable resources, with an ultimate goal of cutting-down the greenhouse gas emissions. In this aspect the introduction of sustainable policies and regulatory frameworks has resulted in phenomenal growth of PV industry. For instance, a record high 114 GW of PV installations is said to be achieved by end of 2019, which is almost 17.5 % increase in growth compared to 2018. This is evident from Figure 1, where the total PV installations is shown based on the data from IEA. Eventually, these sustainable practices has culminated an increase in the Compounded Annual Growth Rate of PV Installations  to 42% between 2000 and 2015 and it is set in the range of 100 GW/yr installations in past few years. The above mentioned figures is a clear-indicator of increased industrial growth, credits to rise of new PV markets and increase in global demand.

    Figure ‑1 Global PV Installations

    Challenges faced by PV industry and Evolution of Big Data

    As mentioned earlier, the PV industry has expanded rapidly in the last few years. These large scale expansions has led to more possibilities as well as complications. One of the challenges is most of the large scale PV plants produce several terabytes of data which needs to be analysed to understand the real-time PV performance. These large scale solar plants record meteorological and electrical data which are logged every minute. In addendum, the presence of numerous sensors and high frequency of data collection yields a large dataset with several million points per day which has to be analysed. Though most of the plants have data acquisition systems and communication devices, the quality of data that is retrieved is not known. The recorded data should be summarised in relevant metrics and visual representation of data enables quicker comprehension. In a nutshell, “every data recorded is important and what that data tells us is even more important”. However, the PV plant users do not have time to manipulate and interpret these extensive datasets. As a consequence, most of the PV plant owners end up in bad business decisions due to poorly presented data analysis. The analysis of outdoor PV data solves a variety of questions such as

    1. Is the PV plant operating normally?
    2. What are the differences observed in AC and DC energy yield (predicted and measured)?
    3. Is the loss in PV Performance due to thermal effects, soiling, inverter faults or flaws in
      electrical measurement equipments?
    4. How is the data quality and reporting accuracy of measurement equipments?

    Significance of Big Data

    Big Data acts a powerful decision making instrument and it has greater significance for optimization of PV plant performance. But, the challenge lies in transforming big data into valuable information. One must be aware that the data recorded should not suffer from any inaccuracies, however in reality the raw dataset is bound to have certain errors. Hence, after data retrieval the quality of dataset has to be checked as erroneous data is hard to detect. In this regard, from the acquired dataset analytics helps in visualizing data in the form of simple charts as well as complex functions, thereby enabling to determine inaccuracies if any. Future lies in investing in machine learning tools which can very well solve performance related issues and removing bad data. Also with the advent of Artificial intelligence and machine learning tools paves way for predictive analytics, from which PV performance can be predicted based on current patterns and historical dataset, of course this is beyond the task of human analysts.

    In this aspect, more attention has to be paid to the outdoor data analysis, because it can help us in understanding outdoor PR and enables a realistic and accurate comparison of the rated and obtained values, however this still remains a tough nut to crack. Hence, to solve these issues the PV industry definitely needs reliable data tools to analyse outdoor data; in turn the findings from outdoor data can help in reducing the cost of solar energy which will stimulate newer markets.

    Final Notes

    With the emergence of Big Data, PV industries are investing in data tools, which ensures reliable tracking, monitoring and data evaluation. For instance, market giants like IBM(Watt-sun), DNVGL(Veracity) are building self-learning weather models and data platforms which can forecast failures, commercialization of such technologies will benefit the PV industry. In a nutshell, the PV industry is not searching for one specific data tool we need a combination of many ways such that data can be ideally used to reduce the cost of solar which eventually proves crucial to transform PV to a mainstream energy source. Conclusions drawn from outdoor PV data analysis can definitely help in increasing the PV performance. Focusing on data acquisition, data organisation, data governance and data validation, coupled with the mastery of Data Analytics is vital to achieve higher levels of PV performance as each percent of additional performance contributes to profitability.

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  • DIGITAL MARKETING : The future is here

    DIGITAL MARKETING : The future is here

    Marketing and Advertising have come a long way. Earlier marketing campaigns were limited to running ads on print media, television and radio. But today, the world is shifting towards digital market place, businesses are expanding their reach and connect with audiences through digital marketing tactics. Digital Marketing is all about promoting or developing brand awareness using Internet. The objective is to create content, publish content and then amplify content. By combining digital tools with traditional marketing strategies, one can optimize and enhance the results of your marketing campaign. The need for digital marketing strategy is listed below:
    Strategy provides you direction and goals, thus by building a proper strategy you can cater the needs of customers, understanding your target audience is the key element. Moreover, consumers are shifting towards digital medium, with most having smartphones they tend to look for digital content. They mostly use it for social media, finding reviews, products and brands, so this provides another valid reason to adopt digital marketing. By using right digital marketing strategies, you can definitely shape your business, else you might lose potential customers.
    Besides, digital marketing metrics can be tracked with the help of analytics to identify the success rate of your campaign. It provides an overview of ROI, helps in identifying areas of improvement. With analytics you can track, no. of visitors, no. of page views, bounce rates, average time a user spends on a particular product. By analysing all these data, you can optimize your strategies accordingly to get better outcomes. Further, digital marketing helps in making your brands more interactive. For instance, online ads, videos, smart infographics can grab the audience, helps in engaging customers and makes you stay competitive.
    Finally, with digital marketing you can strategically focus to improve the visibility of your product/brand. Traditional marketing comes out as an effective tool to reach target audience, but if your looking beyond, digital marketing will definitely help! The primary task to enhance brand recognition lies in defining your goals, strategies and KPIs to document them down the line. Some of the advantages that digital marketing brings to the customers are listed below.

    Moreover Digital marketing will help define specific e-marketing objectives and develop strategies to ensure that resources are deployed to take advantage of the marketing opportunities provided by the Internet, and to counter its threats. Digital marketing is focused on how a company and its brands use the web and other digital media such as e-mail and mobile media to interact with its audiences in order to meet its marketing goals. By looking through all the variety of marketing arenas from content and social marketing to marketing technology, analytics and organizational transformation, to find and establish the ultimate summary for marketing trends in 2019. The various marketing trends that exists are search engine optimization (SEO), Search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing (SMM), mobile marketing, interactive marketing, email and affiliate marketing and web analytics. So how to define a digital marketing strategy? Let’s have a look!

    How to build a comprehensive digital marketing strategy?

    Identify the users persona , gather their demographic data which includes age, location and income. Next step is to look for qualitative information, identify what are their goals, priorities and challenges. In the next step, identify the digital tools that are required, evaluate the existing digital marketing channels further audit your plan. Based on your findings and the gaps identified make a content creation plan highlighting the content that is needed to help you attain business goals. This includes audit and plan the earned media, paid media now bring this together to develop your final marketing strategy!

     

    Conclusion

    Digital marketing offers an enormous amount of possibilities for companies. It is an evolving world which is why constant development of strategies is significant. It is easier for customers to find alternate products on the internet, which can be your competitors, because of the minimal effort a person has to make to get to another website. Most webpages are filled with different kinds of touch point ads, which makes it difficult for potential buyers to visit your website without losing them through their way of internet. Hence fundamental understanding of customer behavior is essential. First step is to grab customers attention. There are just different types of strategies which are used to get in touch with a certain target group. Which strategies are used at the end depends on the way potential buyers do behave and how a company is able to understand these actions. Nowadays it seems to be indispensable running a business without any online presence because figures show that the trend from consuming in shops goes in the direction of online consuming. So the main objective for companies is to build a clear defined brand which represents companies’ values and strengths and catch potential buyers’ and loyal consumers’ attention offline as well as online. This interaction of both worlds enables a maximum outcome for an organisation concerning monetary as well as un-monetary profit.

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  • Freshers Recruitment at GRInfotech

    Freshers Recruitment at GRInfotech

    We conducted walk-in interview for 2018 passout freshers on September 08, 2018 and we got overwheelming responses. We had around 250 candidates came for direct interviwes and its been very touch process to select the star performers…

  • Independence Day Celebrations

    Today the office was in a free and independence mood around the corner. This year the celebrations were a little grander than usual …