Software Testing using the Cloud

We would like to test a software, for which we need to setup a test environment. The test environment would consist of requisite hardware- software infrastructure as well as the necessary automated test tools. It is a known fact that, in many cases, the cost of setting up the test environment and effort/time needed to do so, become inhibitors for doing a full-fledged testing of the applications. What if this infrastructure is readily available to us for use on the cloud? Yes, we are talking of test infrastructure-as-a-service and test software-as-a-service.

There may be multiple types of requirements. We may have all the test tools but may need only the infrastructure. We may need some tools which we would want to use along with our existing tool licenses on a cloud infrastructure.

Such a cloud testing environment can be used for testing any in-house software or for testing a cloud-based software.

However, our experience has shown that cloud testing is primarily carried out for the load and performance testing of web applications. This is because of multiple reasons. First and foremost is the prohibitive cost of owning the automated tools for carrying out these tests. Secondly, since the application under test needs to be tested for its load and performance handling capabilities in a near-real environment, cloud provides a natural real-time environment where simulating real life scenarios is easier than doing it in a laboratory.

There are number of companies that offer the testing tools and test environments on the cloud. SOASTA, Appvance, LoadStorm, UserReplay, BlazeMeter, SeeTestCloud and many more are some of the commonly visible cloud based test tools. Lots more are being introduced into the market. One can also rent the infrastructure/platform on the cloud and tailor make the test environment that suits the specific project needs.

Again, one must be careful to choose the right approach, right test environment and the right service offerings. Evaluation of candidate Test tool environments and toolsets is a big challenge and one must invest properly to identify the most suitable choice for the company/product. Any approach that is taken blindly may lead to severe failures and unwarranted and misleading results and thus may put the entire faith in cloud testing into jeopardy.

Source : “Software Testing – Effective Methods, Tools and Techniques“ book authored by our director, Mr Pradeep Oak and published by McGraw Hill.