Everything You Need To Know About Cloud Testing

Application development and testing have evolved in the past decade. With cloud computing, things have changed. It is now possible to develop and test in the cloud.

But why would you need the cloud for testing purposes? We will cover it and more in our guide on cloud testing.

Rapid Development Cycles are now common among teams. It is now paramount to get to market first and then use an agile methodology to keep making changes until it meets the requirement. These dynamic changes in the business environment mean that businesses now have to improve the Time To Market(TTM) drastically. Without it, they might lose market share or the ability to keep users loyal to their platform.

The dynamic and free-flow market requires both large-scale enterprises and startups to change their approach. And, that’s where cloud testing comes in.

Cloud testing offers a way to simulate a testing environment using cloud computing solutions. It is a good alternative to on-premise testing solutions as the organization does not have to maintain it over time.

In this article, we will explore cloud testing in detail. Let’s get started.

Table of contents:

1. What is Cloud Testing?
2. Types of Cloud Testing
3. Things You should know about cloud testing
4. Benefits of cloud-based testing
5. Challenges of Testing in a Cloud Computing Environment
6. Conclusion

What is Cloud Testing?

Cloud testing is a broad term that encompasses how web applications are tested, including performance, security, scalability, and reliability. The main difference here is that you do testing on an off-premise setup, i.e., a cloud solution provided by a third party. The third party not only provides the software required but also ensures that the infrastructure can provide the horsepower to run the tests.

Cloud testing removes any constraints that come with an on-premise setup. For instance, global teams can work together without the need to worry about location, budget, and the costs associated with on-premise setup.

Types of Cloud Testing

There are many types of cloud testing. Each type is aimed to solve a certain purpose. Let’s discuss them below.

1. Performance testing: The performance testing checks whether the application is ready to perform at critical levels. It also checks if the general performance of the application is good. The two testings that are carried out include load testing and stress testing.
2. System testing: In system testing, the application is run through different system-wide tests to see if the application is working as intended.
3. Availability testing: Here, the application is tested if it has any outages or not.
4. Interoperability testing: In interoperability testing, the application is run in different environments to see if it works in different settings.
5. Security testing: Security testing is aimed to check if the application is suffering from any sort of loopholes or exploits. The aim of the testing to make the application as secure as possible.
6. Browser performance testing: Browser performance testing is aimed to ensure that the application works on different browsers, devices, and operating systems.
7. Disaster recovery testing: In disaster recovery testing, the application is tested for data loss in case of a disaster takes place.
8. Multi-tenancy testing: Lastly, multi-tenancy testing checks the security and application’s performance when multiple users are using the application.

Things You should know about cloud testing

Cloud testing is different from that on-premise testing. To ensure that you understand the difference, let’s look at the five things that you should about cloud testing.

• Cloud testing is independent in nature. This means that the infrastructure that you are going to use doesn’t need to cater to a particular solution. You can install anything on the infrastructure and use the cloud infrastructure as per your needs.
• Cloud computing is mostly pay-per-use. So, the more you use the more you have to pay. This means that you need to keep a tab on the expenses!
• Testing should always be done from the user’s perspective.
• The cloud service provider has its own terms of service which you should check before investing in them.

Benefits of cloud-based testing

Cloud testing brings a lot of benefits to the table. To truly get the grasp of what cloud testing has to offer, let’s go through the benefits below:

• Cloud-based solutions are known to be scalable. So, if you are a business that wants flexibility, then cloud testing is for you.
• With cloud-based testing, you save time as the application can be tested simultaneously with different settings.
• The testing environment can be easily customized to meet the business requirement.
• It also provides cost-cutting as you do not have to spend money on hardware or the services that you are not going to use.
• Testing on the cloud provides consistency and a faster testing environment with automated testing.
• Cloud testing also offers the ability to do better team collaboration as developers and testers can work together remotely and configure their instances separately if needed.

Challenges of Testing in a Cloud Computing Environment

Cloud computing testing does come with challenges. As a business or DevOps, you should know about the challenges as it will help you prepare for the inevitable and customize your requirements around it. Let’s list the challenges below.

• With Cloud testing, there is always a concern about security, even when they are equipped with robust disaster recovery plans. So, if you are too concerned about the security of your data or application, then you may want to go off-cloud and work on your on-premise infrastructure.
• Even though Cloud testing is a cheaper alternative, its ROI is questionable. To solve it, the organization can work towards map its approach when it comes to cloud services adoption. If the ROI is too high, then the organization can look for alternatives.
• The cloud is scalable; however, it is common for the process to suffer from performance-related issues.
• Lastly, there are always integration-related issues that can crop up during testing phases.

Conclusion

Cloud testing is a viable approach for many organizations and startups. If the organization is looking to improve collaboration and also the speed of testing, they can always opt for cloud testing. However, it does come with its own challenges — that can deter many businesses from opting for it. The best approach is to do cloud testing mapping migration before moving to it. If it is viable, then move to it — otherwise, look for alternatives when it comes to testing.

   

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