#cloud software testing

The report “Online Testing Software Market Research Report 2015-2026” provides an in-depth analysis of the global Online Testing Software market across top key companies, products, and Applications. The research report provides an inclusive analysis of major industry drivers, restraints, and their impact on market growth during the forecast period.

The Online Testing Software Market Report covers the manufacturer’s data, pricing, revenue, gross profit, business distribution, demand, market size & growth forecast, etc. This information helps the consumer know about the competitors better. This Online Testing Software, cloud software testing Market report also covers all the regions and countries of the world, which shows a regional development status, including market size & share, sales data, volume and value, as well as price data

The concept of cloud computing is gaining a lot of popularity due to its ease of access, security and disaster recovery process amongst other things.

With cloud computing, companies can store, manage or process all their files and data using internet servers instead of local storage. Due to a lot of benefits offered by cloud computing, companies have also started using this technology to test performance of software and applications. Cloud testing includes testing of applications using cloud based resources (hardware, infrastructure and software) for a cohesive, end-to-end solution.

Why Use Cloud Testing

Previously, testing of applications was done internally by the testing team of a company. But as more and more services are moving to the cloud, the testing process is becoming a lot better. There are numerous benefits of using cloud software testing compared to regular testing methods.

-  Lesser cost of testing: Due to the flexibility offered by the Cloud, the computing resources can be easily scaled up or down whenever required to provide a cost-effective website and application performance. Companies essentially have to pay for just what they use. Unlike the regular in-house testing process, businesses do not need to invest a lot of money to set up hardware and infrastructure for long term testing. They can go to the cloud provider directly, who takes care of the tools and licenses.

-  Test under different circumstances: Cloud infrastructure is built to handle different testing scenarios for optimum results. Companies can replicate virtual users in various locations across the globe to test how the application responds when used far and wide. Cloud services also support enterprise testing due to its scalability.

- Faster testing: Tests can be run virtually on-demand with scalable Cloud infrastructure. Companies can easily schedule testing times and resources are allocated accordingly. This eliminates long delays as is seen with hardware allocation and deployment procedures of in-house testing.

Challenges in Cloud Testing

Cloud testing can be an effective way to test applications and websites for businesses. But just like every other testing process, it has its own set of challenges.

-  One of the major cloud testing challenges faced by companies is the level of service provided by the vendor. Often after a company has moved a major part of its operations to the Cloud, it cannot be accessed when required. The Cloud service provider can thus cause delays in the testing process.

-   With cloud testing it can be difficult to isolate root causes for multiple problems encountered in load testing. Also, when trying to precisely measure effects of minor changes made to application code or its settings, cloud testing can make it difficult due to differences in internet traffic and bandwidth availability.

-   Sometimes during load testing, one particular IP address can generate a lot of traffic. Apparently, security teams identify the pattern to resemble a DoS attack and shut down the tests. In such cases, the traffic might even be real and lack of a proper testing strategy or schedule can cause undue delays.

Best Practices in Cloud Testing

1. Preparing for a two-stage process: The initial stage should be for internal testing, where minor performance issues can be sorted out under medium load. Companies should proceed to the second cloud testing stage only after preliminary internal tests, by increasing the load gradually for large-scale application testing.

2. Using multiple cloud providers: Using different cloud providers enable companies to test in more geographical locations and get more realistic results. Also, the testing can be more scalable. Network issues can also be sorted at the provider level in this case.

3. Keep your data secure: It is wise to encrypt data transferred between controllers and load generators. This secures both the data sent and received. Also, securing the load generators with their own firewalls prevents external threats.

In a world of Cloud Computing, it can be extremely beneficial for large companies to move their application testing to the cloud.

As Cloud based applications are going mainstream, the quality assurance and the testing teams need to revise and innovate their testing skills and processes in order to ensure a timely and effective application deployment and return on investment. The Cloud technology has already caused disruptive effects on the technical aspect of the business landscape. The most critical change exhibited by the Cloud is the amount of power and flexibility given to the  designers, content creators and the end users. Here, the traditional role of the developers, testers and end users have pushed their limits and are eventually becoming interchangeable in many respects. The multi-tenant architecture helps experience  the full potential of the Cloud. Here, each client shares computing resources provided by the service provider, but with separate data and code bases. The following can be considered as the main steps in the Life Cycle of Cloud Application Testing

-      Requirement Specifications: Specifications, workflow description and security grid reference created by the business analyst

-      Development: Significant Testing is done in this phase before the actual testing cycle starts. Testing performed – Field validations, Formula Validations, Workflow validation, Security validation and web service validation

-      Testing: System testing requires lesser time than usual. Testing performed: Integration Testing, Functional testing, Regression Testing and user acceptance testing.

The Cloud Testing approach: An effective cloud testing approach can be planned through the following steps:

Verification of Field     Properties

Verification of formulas     associated with fields

Verification of triggers and     workflows

Verification of data security

Verification of web services

Many companies are willing to be more adventurous regarding Cloud application testing. Factors which account for such an approach are:

-      Almost half the technology infrastructure for testing remains underutilized, consuming capital, power and space. Testing is a period activity and requires new environments to be set up for each project.

-      Cloud Software Testing can be seen as safe, as it does not involve sensitive corporate data and has minimal impact on the day to day business activities of an organization.

-      Applications are becoming more and more dynamic, complex, distributed and component based, creating multiple challenges for  the testing team.

-      Cost reduction is one of the main factors that is encouraging the companies to move to the Cloud. Cloud Software Testing leverages the Cloud computing infrastructure, which reduces the unit cost of computing and increases effectiveness in testing.

Challenges of Cloud Testing

-      Security is one of the primary concerns in Cloud testing. User privacy protection, security standards on the Cloud, security of applications currently running in the Cloud and the security testing techniques are some of the main issues of Cloud testing.

-      The performance of a shared application is another big challenge. As the application is shared across many users it could lead to delays.

-      Certain configurations may not be supported by the Cloud service provider. This makes it difficult to emulate the customer environment settings.

-      Integration testing is another challenge in the testing process on the Cloud. Interactions between the network, database and servers pose testing challenges under potential risks such as crashes, network breakdown, etc.

Conclusion