In the past decade, organizations have felt the need to dramatically increase the velocity at which they build and deploy software. Customers want frequent improvements and functionality for their applications and expect these changes to work flawlessly. Because of this rapid pace of software development, staying up to date with testing methodologies is more crucial than ever for delivering high-quality applications.
The faster and more complicated software development becomes, the more traditional testing methods will struggle to keep up. Some organizations feel like they need costly testing environments that are difficult to set up based on real-world scenarios. In these situations, developers and testers can waste days or weeks dealing with bugs instead of creating value. For example, one startup needed two weeks of manual QA to validate an application before deployment and still had bugs pass by undetected.
Nowadays, cloud computing can help software development teams transform the way they work by eliminating the problems of the past. We’ve seen how the cloud can help us deal with these disadvantages by giving us easy access to services and resources. These technological advances make it easier for organizations to have highly effective QA processes.
In this article, we’ll discuss how cloud computing improves the software testing process and why it’s essential to help accelerate the delivery of reliable software.
Why Modern Testing Processes Need to Evolve
Companies need to constantly find ways to improve how they update and release their applications to the world. User expectations have changed a lot from the early days of computing. It wasn’t uncommon to wait months or even years to receive any new software updates. These days expectations have considerably changed. People want the latest and greatest features as quickly as possible, and organizations need to find ways to satisfy these needs if they’re going to stay in business.
Traditional software testing often struggles to meet the demands of companies and their customers, necessitating different approaches toward quality. You need to combine speed and flexibility to adapt to what users expect. Development teams risk shipping bugs, slow apps, and have security vulnerabilities slip through the cracks. All of this leads to a lack of trust in your business. Using the cloud to make your testing processes quicker and more effective will help you achieve those goals.
How Cloud Computing Helps Improve Software Testing
Cloud computing provides several advantages that eliminate the shortcomings of traditional testing processes. The following are a few areas where modern software testing benefits from the cloud:
Rapid provisioning of test environments
Making a copy of your application’s production environments ensures your product works as expected, especially as it expands. However, setting up servers, databases, and other pieces can quickly become expensive. The cloud reduces these costs by allowing teams to quickly spin up testing environments as needed, saving countless hours and simplifying the configuration of environments that mirror production settings. As a bonus, organizations can save a ton of money by tearing down any unused resources after testing.
Smooth scalability during testing
Software testing can also help uncover other issues to make a system run better. Online shops can benefit from performance and loading testing to handle a sudden surge of traffic. Tests like these will require high computing power to simulate the conditions needed to get relevant results. Cloud computing is the perfect solution for these scenarios since these platforms can scale resources to handle extensive testing. Using the almost-unlimited scalability of these platforms gives organizations all the resources they need to perform any testing task.
Access to diverse testing environments
Nowadays, users can access a website in many different ways, from desktops and laptops to smartphones and tablets. This access is convenient for consumers but not as much for the organizations and teams that need to maintain these applications. Companies can’t run or maintain all the systems they need to ensure their software works across what their customers use. Access to various testing environments is another massive advantage of cloud computing, allowing teams to validate behavior and functionality regardless of the device.
Current Trends in Cloud-Based Testing
We’re in the middle of a paradigm shift in the QA industry thanks to cloud computing. It’s helping testers make the most out of their testing efforts by helping them run tests faster and improve test coverage. The following are a few of the areas where test cloud computing shines:
Containerization
Tools like Docker help testers build testing environments that work the same way across all platforms, no matter the underlying infrastructure. Teams can package their apps into a container and reuse them to set up what they need to perform their tests. Along with maintaining a consistent flow throughout the testing process, containerization makes testing more efficient and cost-effective for organizations.
Serverless
The serverless computing model simplifies QA by eliminating the need to manage additional infrastructure. Instead of setting up and maintaining servers, testers can focus on higher-value tasks like building and executing test cases. Serverless computing on the cloud is well suited to handle complex flows like event-driven testing because it doesn’t require up-front resource allocation. Combined with the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of cloud computing, serverless computing significantly improves testing for software development.
Cloud testing services
Needing to perform tests on multiple systems is an expensive undertaking. Back when Android smartphones became more popular, and teams were building applications targeting these mobile devices, the only way to ensure applications worked well for different screen resolutions and Android versions was to purchase over a dozen smartphones and manually load our app. We don’t have to deal with that anymore since we now have cloud services that provide direct access to real hardware that give us access to any system we need at a fraction of the cost.
Implementing Cloud-Based Testing in Your Organization
To get started with cloud-based testing, you first need to figure out what challenges your testing processes currently have before jumping into implementation. For example, your team might have some slow automated tests or poor continuous integration, creating bottlenecks. Another example is when your infrastructure costs get out of control. Understanding your problems will help you determine where cloud computing software testing can provide the most value for your workflows.
Now it’s time to define the goals you want for establishing cloud-based testing processes. Start by noting what you and your organization want to achieve by using the cloud for QA. It can be a goal like having faster and more reliable automated test runs or better resource usage to keep costs down. Ideally, these goals will align with the company’s goals.
With your goals in hand, you’ll need to choose the right tools for the job. Many cloud providers offer the services you need to bolster your testing, but they’re not all created equal. Some platforms will fit your budget better than others. You might also need specific tools that are only available in a particular cloud service provider. You should also consider who will be maintaining these systems. Something else to check is how these services integrate with existing tools and how much the vendor will support you when things go wrong.
Challenges Around Using Cloud Software Testing
Despite all the benefits, cloud computing brings to the table for testing, it can also introduce some obstacles that hinder your progress. Awareness of these potential issues is vital for successfully implementing testing in the cloud for your organization.
Security concerns
The cloud makes it easier than ever for remote and distributed testing teams to have access to the information needed to do their jobs. However, that same convenience can also create security holes that someone can easily exploit. Some examples include automotive manufacturer Toyota accidentally exposing thousands of customers’ data due to a misconfiguration and former employees having access to a company’s systems after leaving, according to Osterman Research.
Even when using the cloud primarily for testing environments, these systems can act as gateways to sensitive information and must also receive the same care to protect them from bad actors. Some steps you can take to prevent malicious activity from occurring in your cloud environments are:
- Performing regular security audits using the tools built into the platform, which consolidate detailed logs for all services in use.
- Leverage security features integrated into the cloud platform, such as automated application of security patches to your test environments and rotation of secrets and credentials.
- Implement strict access controls to control who can access specific resources and data within your cloud environments.
Ensuring data compliance
Regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) require organizations to implement safeguards for protecting sensitive data. Complying with these in a cloud-based environment presents a challenge. For instance, one small company tightly restricted access to production data but wanted to use that same data to set up testing environments that mirrored real-world usage. While it would make QA easier, a wider net of employees would have access to personally identifiable information.
The following steps can help avoid violating these regulations and facing steep fines while causing irreparable damage to your organization’s trust:
- Choose the right cloud service provider to help you easily comply with these regulations when using their platforms for testing.
- Implement data encryption while at rest and during transit, along with proper anonymization techniques to protect your data from prying eyes.
- Educate teams about the pitfalls of using personally identifiable information so they don’t accidentally expose them during testing.
Performance issues
One of the primary reasons why teams opt for cloud-based software testing is to speed up their current QA methods. In reality, the cloud can slow your testing processes if you’re not careful. For example, if you’re in India accessing testing environments in the U.S. (or vice versa), adds significant latency while working on these cloud-based systems, which can slow down progress. Another situation involves poorly-optimized infrastructure, which leads to bottlenecks and delays during provisioning and scaling during QA.
Addressing performance-related issues when using cloud computing for testing will help you reap all the benefits that these platforms provide:
- Plan and provision the necessary resources you need to meet your specific testing needs, selecting the appropriate infrastructure with enough headroom while remaining cost-effective.
- Distribute your available resources in optimal geographic regions to minimize latency for those working on these systems.
- Proactively monitor the performance of your cloud-based testing environments and adjust the infrastructure as needed before it slows the team down.
Wrap Up
Traditional testing processes have struggled to keep up with the demands of modern software development. Leveraging cloud computing for software testing offers significant advantages that can help organizations produce high-quality applications and transform how their teams operate. Implementing these processes augments existing capabilities with more efficient and effective QA practices, leading to rapid development cycles with fewer issues.
Organizations that haven’t adopted some form of cloud-based testing would greatly benefit from exploring cloud computing platforms to see how they can fit with existing workflows. Whether using the cloud to rapidly set up test environments, scale on demand, or quickly access various cloud testing services, it can improve your applications’ reliability and overall quality, ultimately delivering a better user experience to remain competitive in today’s fast-paced business and tech environment.
