Cloud testing services are evolving and creating new opportunities for the application development community. It is always a cost-effective decision to move testing to the cloud. Whether you have a large or small company, the road to cloud testing can improve software quality assurance in many ways. Find out the importance of quality assurance testing and how Cloud testing can help improve it.

Importance of Quality Assurance Testing for Applications

Quality assurance (QA) is a series of measures taken to ensure that an application is free from error. Before you find out how cloud testing services can improve software QA, you must realize the importance of quality assurance testing in the first place.

Moving Automation from Application-Level to Lifecycle

Automating testing through QA helps shift towards lifecycle automation. IoT is gradually addressing application testing from the perspective of a lifecycle point of view than conventional testing.

At the core of this concept is to consider how users are using products and not just the details related to product design. This shift in QA translates into testing the following:

• Customer experience
• Cross-platform compatibility
• Network

The use of QA testing automation involves the use of adaptive techniques that aren’t possible with traditional testing methods. Advanced QA automation allows you to incorporate automation from the very beginning and across the application lifecycle.

Better Decision Making

QA is undergoing a dramatic change in terms of data input. QA practices followed by cloud testing services can be enhanced through analysis of a wide range of data sets available from websites, especially social media. It enables better decision making via advanced analytics.

When you receive direct feedback from users, it provides a clear perception of where you stand. The benefits include:

• Insights for the development of better strategies
• Strategizing and improving QA practices help assess the impact of implementation in the results
• Research on customer experience with the product helps create actionable intelligence

All this can further be used for predictive or prescriptive analysis.

Skilled Resources

QA helps empower your business. When QA practices are implemented across all stages of the product life cycle, it encourages greater attention to detail and process transparency.

QA teams now understand how important it is to test embedded applications and big data. QA resources can foresee bugs and can help rectify the code from the very beginning. Such resources also explore methods for effective automation of most testing, thus improving process efficiency.

QA testing is important in many more ways, such as:

• Decoding reliable data from big data for analysis
• Faster time-to-market, improving customer feedback and brand reputation
• Innovation through engineering
• Implementing DevOps
• Maximization of profits
• Behavior-based development

There are many strong points to cloud testing services. You must know about them before leveraging the benefits of cloud testing.

• Flexible Scaling: Cloud-based testing benefits from elastic scalability. This allows scaling up/down based on the changes in requirements and project goals.
• Easier Disaster Recovery: The cloud allows easier and faster recovery of all assets. The process is not complex like traditional models.
• Cost-Effectiveness: Cloud testing helps bring significant cost reduction in software QA testing.

How Cloud Testing Improves Software QA?

Cloud testing is the process of monitoring and reporting on real-world user traffic conditions and load balance. It also involves stress testing for different simulated usage conditions. Here are the different ways in which it can help improve application QA.

1. Simple & Cost-Effective Test Bed Creation

Cloud testing enables cost-effective and simple test bed creation and reconfiguration.  It allows cloud testing services to create a test bed almost instantly without high costs and extensive efforts for building the infrastructure.

The cost of ownership of cloud based automation tools is only a fraction of traditional test automation tools.

• No costly per seat licensing cost
• Lesser hardware requirements
• Higher reusability of test components
• High scalability makes the tools perfect for load/performance testing
• Pay as you use model allows scaling up/down

There is no additional cost when tools are not used in a given testing scenario. Lesser expenses on the tools also translate into lesser capital expenses.

There is more to the savings in terms of labor and hardware costs. The cloud also allows you to easily reconfigure or withdraw your virtual infrastructure. It also allows cloning environments for parallel testing.

2. Promotes Collaboration

The collaborative and communication benefits of Cloud testing allow better collaboration at local and remote team levels. Some of the key features that provide these benefits include:

• Continuous integration
• Chat-like communication systems
• Continuous testing and reporting

Cloud automation tools allow cloud testing services scattered around different locations to collaborate with ease and greater efficiency. Testing teams can readily test the application from multiple locations. They can access test reports without the need for uploads and downloads.

It allows testing 24 hours a day. All this is made possible due to the design and infrastructure of the Cloud. There is a central server that connects to a network of systems located anywhere you need. Testers located in any of your office branches can connect to the Cloud and choose the machines they want to test their application on.

For example, you can start the testing process with your American testing team, followed by the European team, and complete the process with the Indian QA team. The Cloud allows a 24-hour around the clock testing process that continues until the application reaches the market.

Eventually, this helps speed up the process of decision making. Thus, you will be able to ensure faster delivery of the product.

3. 24-Hour Resource Access

Traditional QA testing involved sharing access to the in-house infrastructure, usually off-hours. On the other hand, cloud testing services mean that the resources are available and accessible by multiple teams around the clock. As already mentioned, QA teams have global access, without concern for their geographic location or time zones. This translates into greater test coverage within a 24-hour period. Around-the-clock access means that the testing cycle of the software can ensue continuously without any interruption.

4. Multi-Device, Platform & Environment Testing

Cloud testing allows for comprehensive testing. Your cloud testing services can run applications on all potential devices that support all the commonly used:

• Platforms
• Operating systems
• Web browsers

Cloud-based testing allows testing on all types of devices and with all configurations that you can contemplate. This eliminates the need to purchase individual platforms.

There are two key areas where cloud based QA testing can allow this:

• There is no need for special skills to develop specific infrastructure like Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS
• You can test platform-based environments and features like browser-operating system combinations with more ease and speed.

You can also test different screen sizes. The right cloud vendor/environment for the test bed can equip you with the right tools and capacity required to simulate vast numbers of users, clients, mobile platforms, requests, and much more to run tests on your application.

5. Enables DevOps

It would not be wrong to say that the Cloud and DevOps were made for each other. For example, the use of cloud testing services enables the following benefits in the area of DevOps:

• Configuring similar development, testing, and production environments
• Quick and easy deployment
• Reconfiguration of software and services
• Redeployment
• Automating deployments
• Testing/reporting
• Easy and quick experimentation
• Remote monitoring from different locations
• Temporary user access for feedback
• Performing A/B testing

6. Consistent Development & Testing Tools Setup

Cloud testing allows consistent development and testing tools setup for both current and new staff. It helps create a consistent and shared tools environment. The benefit is that there is no need to install and maintain applications repetitively for each team member. New staff can immediately get up and running and make their contributions.

Cloud testing makes it easy to share tools and data. All that is required is to add the new team member.

7. Faster Testing

Automaton tools are already known for combining the benefits of shorter test cycles with high productivity. Cloud-based automation tools take QA testing to the next level:

• There is faster set up and tool deployment
• There are no lengthy set up/installation processes
• Initiate and continue testing from anywhere in the world
• Application upgrades are seamless without any downtime

The biggest benefit of faster Cloud testing is the reduced time to market. This provides organizations a major competitive edge.

8. Benefits of Virtualization

Cloud-based tools provide cloud testing services the additional benefits of virtualization. You can make optimal use of your resources. Testing becomes more efficient and flexible. Software programs are becoming more and more complex. But virtualization allows resource sharing while reducing capital costs.

There are different types of virtualization in the cloud.

• Operating System Virtualization: The virtual machine software installs on the host OS and not the hardware. Most importantly, OS virtualization allows application testing on multiple platforms or OS.
• Server Virtualization: The application installs directly on the server system. A single server can then be divided into multiple servers. Server virtualization is basically masking the server resources.
• Hardware Virtualization: Hardware virtualization in the Cloud provides the benefit of flexibility of using the virtual machine in place of the physical machine. Multiple OS can be installed on the platform allowing the use of different applications.
• Storage Virtualization: Physical storages from multiple network devices are grouped to create a single storage system in the cloud.

9. Conduct Rigorous Performance Testing

Cloud testing services make performance testing more feasible. Cloud usage can be quickly scaled up and down or stopped completely.

Assured Performance

Cloud-based infrastructures are ideally suited for creating peak demands for enterprise performance testing. It is possible to run tests virtually on-demand.

• Time can be scheduled for running tests
• Resources can be provisioned automatically
• Scheduling becomes more flexible

Covers Enterprise Application

Another benefit of using cloud testing services is that it covers enterprise applications too. It may be required to test multiple routes to a system for a comprehensive approach. The combination of cloud capabilities and traditional concepts helps create an optimal model.

The result is greater confidence in production performance and greater agility compared to traditional techniques. The implementation of performance testing solution through the cloud allows effective and affordable management of heavy loads.

10. First Step to the Cloud

If your organization has still not moved to the cloud, using cloud testing services can work as an excellent first step of moving development and testing to the cloud. Moving to the cloud also works as an excellent learning tool if you will be affected by the new technology.

You will be able to understand the following areas related to the Cloud in relation to the application:

• Capabilities
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Security

The impact can be judged even before the end users are affected. The knowledge thus gained can be used going forward.

There are many more ways in which Cloud testing can improve software Quality Assurance. It creates a dynamic and easily available testing environment. Cloud-based testing has an on-demand nature. This is a big benefit if you need a faster turnaround. Another advantage is that cloud testing services are both affordable and secure. Testing could be conducted in different types of clouds including:

• Private Cloud
• Public Cloud
• Hybrid Cloud

The public cloud is cost-effective and provides adequate security standards. The hybrid cloud provides an ideal combination of advanced security and cost-effectiveness.

Cloud testing services rely on shared resources with dynamic allocation to create flexible environments. These environments simulate real-world traffic and user scenarios. Easier access to the cloud environment allows you to approach application testing as an on-demand and scalable service.

Conclusion

Cloud testing has emerged as a big game-changer in the software testing environment. It has overcome the challenges faced in the traditional testing environment. Setting up cloud testing services has become quite straightforward for all organizations. It empowers everything including the development of user scenarios, setting up infrastructure, designing test cases, starting tests, leveraging cloud servers, delivering results, and monitoring testing goals and everything in between. It has made software testing easier, faster, more reliable, more flexible, and more cost-effective than ever before.