SOFTWARE TESTING USING CLOUD

Testing is an integral part of the software development life cycle and no product can be released to the market without testing it efficiently. Organizations often face various challenges like budget, cost for test, geographical distribution of users, deadlines, infrastructure etc. during the test phase. Cloud based testing could be one of the solution for these problems. In this blog I would like to explain how.

There has always been confusion between cloud testing and testing using cloud. Cloud testing is testing cloud applications but testing using cloud refer to tests which use the infrastructure on cloud for software testing.

Selecting the cloud service provider

Once the task of designing the test cases is completed, it is time to select a service provider. There are certain points that need to be kept in mind while choosing the service providers.

•  The service provider’s configuration model
•  The cost
•   Service Level Agreement
•   Disaster recovery Plan
•  Security

Considering all the above points, you choose a service provider that best suits to your need and budget.

Setting up the infrastructure

After you decide on the service providers, it’s time you take a look at the infrastructure. There are certain crucial factors that need to be addressed when you decide on the cloud infrastructure.

•   Reliability and availability
•   Integration with the existing management tools
•   Good User interfaces
•   Scalability

Once you are sure you have everything in place it’s time you leverage the cloud servers and then start testing.

What kind of tests can be done on cloud?

Most of the conventional test activities can be done on cloud. But the most prominent one would be performance testing due to the high infrastructure it demands. Functional tests can be also be done on cloud especially automation and cross browser tests of web based applications. You can use the cloud services for acceptance testing and system integration testing as well due to the real time environment that it offers.

Challenges that need to be tackled

The lack of universal standards in terms of security, pricing etc. pose a big challenge for organizations when they chose cloud service providers. Also using the cloud services without proper knowledge and planning can sometimes incur additional costs, especially if you are opting for the pay per use policy.

Wrap Up

To summarize, testing using cloud can be beneficial to organizations if planned properly and executed carefully. Jumping to a big scale cloud based testing can be sometimes disastrous. Taking small steps first and scaling up would be the ideal process for the adoption of cloud based testing.