Software testing is defined as an investigation. This investigative effort is performed with the objective of providing information about the quality of the product or service being tested.

Carrying out testing activities can also offer an objective and an independent view of a technology (or a specific software tool), allowing the stakeholders to appreciate and comprehend the potential risks of implementation (this might be what you and your organization might be doing with Splunk). Evaluation testing is conducted in a different way and with different objectives than testing for quality. In this book, we focus on testing Splunk knowledge objects to determine the level of quality (looking for bugs).

Quality testing (or quality assurance) comprises exercising the software (or knowledge objects for Splunk). Generally, each component, feature, or property of an object is assessed independently and as part of the overall object to see the degree to which it: