Software development has gone through a real transformation in the last few years. The days of designing, developing and testing a software package behind closed doors and releasing a finished product are long gone. Today’s always online, always connected setup has made patching software easier than ever before. The cloud trend has heralded a new age of rolling updates.

Test automation is the use of software to control the execution of tests, the comparison of actual outcomes to predicted outcomes, the setting up of test preconditions, and other test control and test reporting functions. Commonly, test automation involves automating a manual process already in place that uses a formalized testing process.

Every tester would have at some point come across the well know debate on software test certification and its importance. I have been fortunate to attend one of the meetups organised by software testing club and meet some greats like Micheal Bolton, Rob Lambert and others. One of the topics that was discussed pretty aggressively was "Test Certification". Debate went in lines of, is Test certification required, would it help fresher's, would it help people who have been in testing for few years and so on. Made a humble attempt to  highlight the discussion and some take away points that came across strongly from the community.