Move to agile has led the developers and testers to adopt test automation. It is because even after testing the application with the best manual testing processes there always remain some defects. Striving to catch them before the release of the application always remains a struggle for the developers but defects get places to creep in. Nowadays, many organizations are running towards a more structured and latest version of test automation, which is cloud-based automation testing.
With the help of automation testing on the cloud, organizations are enjoying the benefit of modernized and improved testing. Cloud provides faster, secure, and reliable delivery of applications, testing new features, fixing bugs on previous versions, efficient testing, improving test coverage, flawless user experience, etc.
Before forging ahead let’s first have an idea about what we are going to learn in this article. We are going to learn all about cloud automation testing. Its types, benefits, challenges everything. We will start with embracing automation with cloud testing and for that, we need to know what cloud testing is. So let’s get started
What is Cloud Testing?
Cloud Testing means testing an application by leveraging cloud computing resources. By cloud computing resources, it means an internet-based platform that renders various computing services such as hardware, software, platforms, and other computer-related services remotely which are needed to execute the tests. Here you are not restricted by the number of physical machines you need to accomplish your testing needs. Cloud testing simulates real-world traffic by running a test suite using existing cloud computing technologies.
It provides an end-to-end solution that modifies the way of testing and helps an organization to expand and stay competitive. It also reduces the cost of testing without failing to provide high-quality applications.
Cloud testing can be performed manually or automated or both. The whole process of testing gets operated online on the cloud with the help of the required infrastructure. This provides the QA teams with the availability of an unlimited number of devices, browsers, and operating systems. It also fixes the geographical limitations, large infra setup, and process maintenance. Thus making testing easier, faster, and manageable on the cloud.
Cloud-based automation testing
Every organization wants to cut its testing cost, and accomplish tasks in less time for faster test execution and enhanced test coverage. All of this can be achieved by taking advantage of the cloud along with the resources that it provides. It creates a scalable environment for executing your test suites to provide quality and efficiency at an optimal level.
Cloud-based test automation allows the utilization of cloud technology in application development to speed up testing and its release. It spins up a test environment on demand so that the development teams can continuously develop, test, and release applications without building their own new infrastructure. In short, cloud base test automation means more test environments and faster test execution.
This is a great way to modernize your application development, shorten testing cycles and increase release velocity.
The Three Major Cloud computing Service Models
Cloud computing is one of the most popular services your Canadian business may benefit from if you partner with experts in managed IT services in Vancouver. This service has three models that stack on top of one another. They are discussed below.
- Software as a Service(SaaS) – This service replaces the traditional on-device applications with licensed ones on a subscription basis. Most SaaS applications can be directly accessed by the users from a web browser using internet services without needing any download or installation. For Example, Gmail, Google Drive, etc.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS)- This service provides organizations to develop, test and deploy applications quickly and easily, by providing an environment required to build, and manage applications without the IT infrastructure. PaaS adds more value to the cloud. It reduces management’s high expenses and lowers costs. With PaaS, you can easily innovate and scale your services on demand.
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)- It is a self-service model for managing remote data center infrastructures. IaaS provides the end users with virtualized computing resources through the Internet. Migrating to Iaas can be cost-effective as there is no need to buy or maintain an on-premise data center infrastructure. It works on a pay and uses basis which means you pay only for a particular resource for as long as your requirement. This solution provides the organizations the flexibility to add, delete or reconfigure IT infrastructure on-demand. It is hosted by a third party such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google.
Benefits of choosing a cloud-based test automation
Cloud services allow using several on-demand test environments to perform automated tests. The benefits of choosing the cloud are many. Some of them are discussed below explaining what you can get from cloud-based test automation.
No limitation on geographical location
Cloud services are on-demand testers who can access the service to perform cloud-based automation testing from anywhere and anytime. It makes application testing and deployment quick and easy. It also enables the developers and test team to work together despite being geographically dispersed. This allows them to accomplish more tasks in less time.
Time-saving
Cloud testing enables testers to run multiple applications on different hardware simultaneously so that they can focus more on fixing bugs than investing energy in handling laborious tasks.
Faster testing
Cloud-based test automation allows testers to automate tests by providing a much greater number of test environments. This significantly shortens testing cycles and expedites the delivery of the output. Increased access to test environments shortens feedback loops meaning early bug fixing, and quick feature release.
Features like cloud collaboration also contribute to faster delivery of results by enabling the team members to access, review, and edit tasks in real-time, resulting in improved project management.
Faster testing and easier access to monitor insights, finding and fixing hidden unknowns enhance test coverage. This results in increased test coverage and boosts confidence that the application is ready to go.
Parallelization
Cloud-based test automation provides the ability to scale test execution through parallelization. Parallel testing allows test teams to accelerate the testing process by spinning up multiple pre-configured test environments simultaneously that mimic various testing parameters. This enables the tester to run multiple versions of the same application on multiple virtual machines or they can be run across different devices, browsers, or operating systems.
Reduced costs
Another benefit of moving test automation to the cloud is its cost-effectiveness. Purchasing servers, data centers, and other physical hardware are expensive and are associated with maintenance and labor costs.
A cloud environment will provide you with all those services means huge savings because you will pay only for what you need. It provides the ability to create numerous on-demand test environments where you can dynamically adjust your testing capacity in sync with your requirements. The shortened release cycles supported by cloud-based test automation also enhance the efficiency of your teams.
Enhanced Test Coverage
Leveraging cloud automation helps you to reduce error-prone manual processes. Hence you cover more test designs with higher efficiency. thus increasing test coverage and also paving the way for more robust and reliable applications
Scalability
Due to the ever-changing organization’s requirements and standards, it is difficult for any organization to have the complete infrastructure needed to perform testing. In case they manage to do so then it will be very challenging and overburdening to upgrade the in-house device labs with the dynamic change in testing requirements. It demands a lot of investment and expertise as well.
Cloud testing solves this problem, with the change in the requirement they provide the organization the flexibility to increase or decrease the testing capabilities by automating the scaling of test execution. It imitates the real environment and allows testing in an emulated testing environment.
Also with an unlimited number of test environments, it becomes easier to release requested features or fix bugs that cause issues within the existing version. Testers just need to select the device of their choice and start testing on them instantly.
Types of testing you can perform in the cloud
Functional Testing
Functional tests ensure that various components of the application function correctly as expected. Under functional testing, there are other forms of testing such as System Verification Testing, Acceptance Testing, and Interoperability Testing (this ensures that the application works when moved from one cloud infrastructure to another).
Exploratory testing
Exploratory testing is performed to increase test coverage of the application and uncover hidden defects and bugs. But this testing takes longer than usual to execute tests. So getting exploratory testing into the cloud provides the advantage of parallelization, shortening the time to reach maximum coverage of the application under test.
Regression testing
Applications are continually being upgraded and updated to improve the user experience. Regression testing ensures that continuous upgrades and updates (changes in the code) have not negatively impacted the applications existing features and usability. Testing with so many updates and versions becomes difficult to manage
But with so many updates and versions that need testing, it can be hard to keep up. Moving the test to the cloud and expanding the number of test environments and conducting regression tests become easier.
Web-based application testing
Web-based application testing means testing a web-based application for its performance, functionality, security, and usability. This is to ensure that the application delivers a flawless user experience.
Performing this testing in the cloud is extremely beneficial as it helps you to know the performance of web-based applications across various browsers, types of devices, screen resolution and size, and operating systems. Leveraging cloud-based device farms, helps organizations cut the costs associated with maintaining these devices on-prem.
Security Testing
Security Testing is essential to make sure that the user’s sensitive and personal information has no unauthorized access and the privacy of users is intact. As with the cloud, everything is available anytime so while maintaining the applications in the cloud, user data integrity must also be tested.
Other Testing types that include in Cloud are
- Performance
- Availability
- Compliance
- Security
- Scalability
- Multi-tenancy
- Live upgrade testing
Challenges of cloud-based testing
No doubt cloud-based test automation is an all-encompassing solution. But there is a saying that every good comes with the bad. This is applicable to the cloud also. So It’s important to understand that there are applications that are better accommodated by on-premises testing.
Security and privacy
Many business organizations move to the cloud but some specific organizations that follow strict regulations and security often require on-prem solutions like healthcare and aerospace. Some tests are even done remotely without connecting to the internet.
While conducting security testing manually there is a chance of human-prone errors like missing out on some security which acts as a great challenge for testers.
Cloud applications despite being multi-tenant in nature, the risk of a data breach always remains. Using automated cloud-based security testing tools the challenge of security can be overcome
Interface compatibility
Upgrade in Cloud service provider, at times also upgrade the external interface which is a challenge for some subscribers who are accustomed to the older interface. Cloud needs to ensure that the users can choose the interface version they want to work with.
Data Migration
Data migration from one Cloud provider to another is difficult as both differ in database schemas. Understanding the data fields, relationships and their mapping across SaaS applications requires a lot of effort and is challenging too.
Performance issues
If cloud services network bandwidth is low then the testing process and the delivery of apps in the cloud get affected. The performance issue in the cloud can be overcome by leveraging cloud-based performance testing tools that work well under varying bandwidths
LambdaTest Automation Framework for Cloud Testing
An automation framework is a strategy for automation. It offers a structured way of attaining quality work with effectiveness. They work as a quick fix for organizations that are looking not just for an immediate fix and also to survive future challenges. There are many predefined frameworks and one of the most prominent is LambdaTest which provides an end-to-end solution for cloud automation testing.
This platform provides testers to get access to a real device cloud to test their web app across more than 3000 real devices, browsers, and operating systems with their respective versions. It also supports multiple programming languages so that the testers can write their test cases using the language they are most comfortable with.
LambdaTest automation framework is flexible, secure, scalable, and reliable. It ensures faster time to market with reduced QA costs. LambdaTest is a cloud-based testing platform that combines the power of testing web apps, mobile testing, parallel cross-browser testing, and many more. It is also equipped with geolocation testing features.
While performing automation testing on this cloud, you will get CI/CD tool integrations installed on the platform. This will help you save time as everything you need is organized in a single place.
