Hosted Bug Tracking - What is It?

Hosted services have been part and parcel of software development since the mainframe days (indeed, mainframe programs are the epitome of hosted services). In a hosted service environment, the computer (the server) that runs a function that’s used by several companies is run remotely; the remote server has its own staff, and the company providing the service manages the logistics, the 24 by 7 technical support, backups and upgrades to the software and hardware. By spreading these costs among multiple clients, the vendor gets a regular revenue stream, and the overhead for those business functions is reduced for the clients.

This mode of business is sometimes called cloud computing, and the companies providing it are called application services providers. There are several categories of applications run on the hosted model, ranging from finance programs to spreadsheets, to customer relationship management to IT asset management and hosted bug and issue tracking systems.

Hosted bug tracking solutions provide most of the business oriented benefits listed above; they also provide some additional development benefits to programmers and technologists doing support work. The first benefit is that there’s a central data entry point where everyone enters the issues discovered by clients or customers, rather than trying to migrate bug reports or issue escalations across multiple servers.

Because of this centralized system, and the ability to have the issue tracking system send out email notifications, one part of the technologist’s job (conveying the status of an issue to a user or stake holder) can be automated, and that leaves more time free for solving actual problems.

When it comes to bug tracking systems, each bug that comes in is assigned a unique ID, and its severity is noted, as well as the triggering conditions. When combined with an internet repository for source code, it allows developers to find out about bugs more efficiently, and to cut down on the response loop for solving the issue. As with support technologists, the less time spent doing routine administration, the more time that’s available for solving problems and hosted bug tracking systems allow developers a unified view of all issues in a code base.

Another ancillary benefit of hosted bug tracking and issue systems is that they generally have easier to navigate bug submission templates; one of the duties of a programmer doing a source code maintenance job is making sure that bugs are tagged and applied to the right issues; a lot of end user submitted bugs are cryptically defined, largely because the end user isn’t familiar with the submission interface. When issue tracking systems are run on site, there’s only a finite number of programmer hours available, and as with most development projects, the user interface development for an internal tool is the first budget line item to get the axe.

For more information on Defect Tracking Tools, visit AdminiTrack.com. The leading authority on Issue Tracking Software.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Johnathan_D._Smith

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