Testing Very Large Database Management Systems: The Case of SAP HANA

Software Testing is an established activity in the software development process to ensure and improve the quality of a software. Consequently, there exists a wide range of literature, popular information, and even multiple ISO standards covering this topic. However, we found that testing very large database management systems (DBMS) requires special adaptations of the generally available guidance for software testing and requires to solve specific challenges that may not be relevant for other areas or smaller software projects. We therefore discuss the testing of SAP HANA, a very large software project with millions of lines of code, to share insights about our approach, best practices, and unsolved challenges that are open for further research.