System testing

System testing of software or hardware is testing conducted on a complete, integrated system to evaluate the system's compliance with its specified requirements. System testing falls within the scope of black box testing, and as such, should require no knowledge of the inner design of the code or logic. [1]

As a rule, system testing takes, as its input, all of the "integrated" software components that have successfully passed integration testing and also the software system itself integrated with any applicable hardware system(s). The purpose of integration testing is to detect any inconsistencies between the software units that are integrated together (called assemblages) or between any of the assemblages and the hardware. System testing is a more limiting type of testing; it seeks to detect defects both within the "inter-assemblages" and also within the system as a whole.



Testing the whole system

System testing is performed on the entire system in the context of a Functional Requirement Specification(s) (FRS) and/or a System Requirement Specification (SRS). System testing is an investigatory testing phase, where the focus is to have almost a destructive attitude and tests not only the design, but also the behaviour and even the believed expectations of the customer. It is also intended to test up to and beyond the bounds defined in the software/hardware requirements specification(s).

Types of system testing
The following examples are different types of testing that should be considered during System testing:

1. GUI software testing
2. Usability testing
3. Performance testing
4. Compatibility testing
5. Error handling testing
6. Load testing
7. Volume testing
8. Stress testing
9. User help testing
10. Security testing
11. Scalability testing
12. Capacity testing
13. Sanity testing
14. Smoke testing
15. Exploratory testing
16. Ad hoc testing
17. Regression testing
18. Reliability testing
19. Recovery testing
20. Installation testing
21. Idempotency testing
22. Maintenance testing
23. Recovery testing and failover testing.
24. Accessibility testing, including compliance with:
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Although different testing organizations may prescribe different tests as part of System testing, this list serves as a general framework or foundation to begin with.