# Security Stream Product Quality Assurance **URL:** \ **Category:** Talk to a SUSE Technical Services Manager\ **Created:** [March 21, 2018, 11:14pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/security-stream-product-quality-assurance/32175 "2018-03-21T23:14:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ScorpionSting](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@ScorpionSting](https://forums.suse.com/u/ScorpionSting)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2018, 11:14pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/security-stream-product-quality-assurance/32175/1 "2018-03-21T23:14:01Z")
I guess this falls more into Michael Mychalczuk’s domain… To be blunt, what the hell is going on? Over the past 12 to 18 months we have noticed a drastic decline in the quality of products released by NetIQ, specifically across the security stream (IDM, Sentinel, Access Manager, eDirectory, etc). The change has been noticable and dramatic, so something has changed or begun to fail in a significant manner. Alone I have 22 SR’s _currently\_open_ with the majority linked to a bug of some description. The majority of those bugs are not related to some bizarre way we’re using the product, but basic core functionality of the product (I’m not going to put specific examples in this post, I consider it a wider issue than that). When Product Managers tell me that they have strong Testing and Quality Assurance for their products, I just have to laugh. “Quality Assurance” is supposed to mean that NetIQ assures the customer that the product is of high quality and has been tested to behave as documented, which is just simply not the case anymore. Too much emphasis has been placed on shoehorning new features into products with little to no validation that the core functionality has not been compromised. On a slight side note, the timing of these issues could not be worse. The State Government is in the process of reviewing the ICT roadmap with emphasis on the IDM, Access, and Security/Privilege components. As part of this review, questions are being asked about product cost and suitability. The process has already begun in earnest with various vendors presenting their products. Having poor functioning products come out of NetIQ is making other vendors look more attractive, despite NetIQ being the incumbent. It never used to be this bad, what has gone wrong? ## – Visit my ‘Website’ ([https://www.isam.kiwi/](https://www.isam.kiwi/)) for links to Cool Solution articles. ScorpionSting’s Profile: [https://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=1663](https://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=1663) View this thread: [https://forums.novell.com/showthread.php?t=507491](https://forums.novell.com/showthread.php?t=507491) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/uploads/suse/original/2X/5/5012ba89e3ffb5220dac47d5ea0ba032e2fe1cb6.png) [@system](https://forums.suse.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 9:24pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/security-stream-product-quality-assurance/32175/2 "2018-03-22T21:24:02Z")
Thank you for taking the time and posting your thoughts on the forum! The first thing that is appropriate for me to do here, before going any further, is to say that \*on behalf of the teams I offer to you, and everyone else that reads this post, my personal and our collective apology. \* Speaking candidly for products that are part of the privilege portfolio (CG, DRA, GPA, PAM), _we have found some significant breakdowns in our processes and our testing technologies_. I’m happy to say that those issues were addressed for the upcoming release of DRA, and that other product teams are looking at similar exercises for their products in their near-term release cycles as well. Over the past 18 months, and a bit longer, _there have in fact been a number of changes going on behind the scenes within product engineering and product management teams across the portfolio products_. I want to assure you, and others, that _there has not been a conscious change made to our testing procedures and personnel with the intent to reduce our focus or emphasis on delivering high quality software_. However, as you have pointed out there has been a need to rapidly address some market needs, and what has happened is that there have in fact been cases where we simply did not test far enough in some areas. In one of our product teams, we recently performed a comprehensive end-to-end test case review that covered over 2,000 test cases. In that analysis, we discovered that when we had added new functionality, we had created both unit and functional test cases, but had not adequately addressed regression test cases which test how our new functionality interacts with existing functionality. This omission in effect created several blind spots in our final testing phase. Writing a response to you, and others, on a forum is easy. Let’s be frank, words are free, easy, and available in plenty. The only thing that will demonstrate our commitment to quality is our actions. _I am confident that in the releases around the privilege products that will be occurring in the late June time frame this year you will see progress in this area._ ## – mychalczukm mychalczukm’s Profile: [https://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=170230](https://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=170230) View this thread: [https://forums.novell.com/showthread.php?t=507491](https://forums.novell.com/showthread.php?t=507491) ---
**Author:** ![ScorpionSting](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@ScorpionSting](https://forums.suse.com/u/ScorpionSting)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 10:54pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/security-stream-product-quality-assurance/32175/3 "2018-03-22T22:54:02Z")
Thanks for taking the time to respond Michael. ## – Visit my ‘Website’ ([https://www.isam.kiwi/](https://www.isam.kiwi/)) for links to Cool Solution articles. ScorpionSting’s Profile: [https://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=1663](https://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=1663) View this thread: [https://forums.novell.com/showthread.php?t=507491](https://forums.novell.com/showthread.php?t=507491)