Organization and Structure of Web Application Testing Framework

So I'm looking to bring web application testing into our .Net environment with a framework such as Selenium. At first, it'll probably be the developers writing the tests, but later it may be just the QA team. I'm wondering where the tests should actually live. Should they live in the same solution that the web application lives or should they live in a completely separa开发者_开发知识库te solution that is just for the tests? Please, note these are regression tests that will be done via automating a web browser so access to the web app's assemblies is not required. The answer probably is based on the environment and other factors, but I'm curious about what other people have done in this situation.

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Regression Testing covers both Unit and Functional Tests. Functional tests exercise the complete program with various inputs. Unit tests exercise individual functions, subroutines, or object methods.

Unit Tests are part of the solution's code and should live with the Primary Code as with Microsoft MVC. Since Functional Tests examine the whole system and not just components, they can live anywhere. However, since your Functional Test are automated scripts, they should be included inside the solution.

The advantage to having both Functional and Unit tests live with the code is the issue of project management. Having all project related files in one repository links code version with test version. Testing scripts need to be stored in a repository (version control system) just like any other project code, so it is good to keep them with the solution.

That way the test team can do white box testing (testing with access to code) by checking-out the solution just like a developer. Their work can be saved, shared, and documented inside Visual Studio. Microsoft even includes some web based management tools with Team Foundation Server that can be used for managing the testing with open communication between test team and developers.