Cloud testing: attracting demand

Testing in the cloud leverages cloud computing environments and seeks to simulate real-world user traffic as a means of load or stress testing Web sites. By Nivedan Prakash

Business applications are becoming more dynamic, distributed and component-based. This is due to demand for applications that are easier to use, more flexible and more connected to real-time data. Consequently, the task of testing and delivering these applications is rising in importance and criticality.

This is where cloud testing has emerged as a fresh approach to testing where cloud computing environments are leveraged to simulate real-world user traffic by significantly decreasing costs. This can also be extended to classical functional, regression and other testing of regular products in a product development cycle from a perspective of cost.

In essence, cloud testing is a form of software testing wherein testing is done using resources, machines or servers from the cloud infrastructure. Besides, the entire testing environments can be obtained from the cloud on-demand at a cost that is practical and reasonable due to the pay-for-use nature of cloud computing and with a lead-time that is near impossible within a company’s own data center.

Initially, this concept took shape when companies started using numerous machines booted up in the cloud in order to simulate web traffic and carry out performance tests on Web sites. Now remote machines in the cloud are used to provide a common ground for testers to test and developers to isolate and resolve the observed software defects.

Apparently, cloud testing has traditionally been used to refer to load and performance testing of Web sites. However, with increasing maturity of technology, all kinds of enterprise software can be tested for functional and performance issues before going in for full fledged enterprise deployment.

According to R V Ramanan, President – Global Delivery and Chief Software Architect, Hexaware Technologies, “Cloud testing is the answer to the less-than-realistic performance test that originates within the infrastructure of one of our clients. When we use cloud testing, we take advantage of hardware and bandwidth that more closely mimics our observed, real world conditions. Essentially, we execute the test in cloud-based infrastructure and bandwidth. This allows us to design and execute global tests that give more meaningful results much faster.”

“Cloud testing basically aligns with the concept of cloud and SaaS. It provides the ability to test by leveraging the cloud, thereby bringing the same benefits that the cloud brings to customers. With cloud testing, we don’t have to procure perpetual licenses for testing, or set up an expensive infrastructure to test the applications. Here, we can leverage the shared environment provided by the cloud testing vendor,” said Vinita Ananth, Director - APJ Region, HP Software-as-a-Service.

Of late, cloud testing is being offered as a service by some providers, which in itself is a new line of business. This service enables the users of cloud testing to reduce or optimize on cost while having the ability to extend testing functionality.

Development of cloud testing

Cloud computing has inherited challenges in terms of security, reliability, and manageability. Mitigating these challenges has lead to the development of cloud testing. Industry experts are of the view that cloud computing does have its share of challenges. It is definitely more secure and easy to manage if any company has on-premise infrastructure. Having put any important data out in the cloud would only require the companies to be doubly sure about the working of their applications and security of their data. In order to achieve that, it is a must to rigorously test applications using various approaches including cloud testing.

Ralph Decker, AVP - AppLabs, added, “In the last couple of years, even though the cloud has raised the bar in terms of the infrastructure management, the above challenges are present in the market. Hence, a proper testing cycle will definitely ensure that these are addressed at the right time in the product development lifecycle and deployment.”

“Product testing organizations typically tested in their own environments and this may not suffice the business’ need once cloud computing comes into the picture. Companies would need to test their products in a cloud environment to ensure security, reliability and manageability. Some examples of such functions are multi-tenancy, billing, metering, etc.,” stated Deepak Visweswaraiah, Senior Director - Storage Software Group, EMC India Center of Excellence.

Here, we would also like to mention that with the increasing scope for cloud computing, there is a spike in demand for cloud testing as well. Cloud computing is growing at a rapid pace. With the advent of this technology, there is bound to be an increase in demand for cloud testing.

Moreover, the hype and popularity around cloud computing has certainly increased the visibility of cloud testing. Many virtues of cloud computing such as scalability, dynamic allocation of resources and the pay-per-use model, which extends to cloud testing, make it an appealing option for enterprise customers.

“As more applications move into the cloud, we will need to ensure that they still provide the same level of service as when run out of dedicated, on-premise infrastructure. For example, an application running in the cloud would need to be tested for network, server, database and software performance as well as the way in which it is cached in the client and security. This means testing would need to be done in the cloud and using the cloud, in turn, pushing the demand for cloud testing,” opined Mukesh Sharma, Founder and CEO of QA InfoTech.

Leveraging cloud computing

As mentioned above, cloud testing leverages cloud computing environments and seeks to simulate real-world user traffic as a means of load testing or stress testing Web sites. Traditionally, load testing or stress testing was done by using tools which let testers simulate a certain number of virtual users. Even though this gives them an idea of the performance of the Web site, it does not tell you about the real user experience. Also, in some cases this approach may not suffice.

However, cloud computing enables testers to boot up numerous machines in real time and get control of them. These machines are then used to generate traffic on the Web site just as a real user would do. Such an approach serves as a good way to carry out load/stress testing. Today, testing vendors like HP and others are offering applications that help test cloud applications and simulate load and stress testing environments.

Chandika Mendis, VP and Global Head of Engineering, Virtusa, pointed out, “Cloud testing can be leveraged to provide real-world traffic originating from many locations around the world to perform a wide-range of load and stress testing scenarios previously not possible or only possible via simulation and extrapolation.”

In addition to it, cloud testing also leverages cloud computing resources to increase testing functionality and significantly decrease costs. The biggest saving on account of testing in the cloud is achieved through the conversion of CAPEX to OPEX. Huge initial investments in building capacity are replaced with need based sourcing of infrastructure, ASQ tools and human resources leading to multi-tenant, efficient and certain utilization.

“In traditional testing, one tests using only one tool. The cloud provides an opportunity to test using multiple tools (the purpose here is to ensure coverage and protect from false positives and false negatives. These are more relevant for security testing for top 10 OWASP vulnerabilities). Testing can be effectively managed for a variety of platforms and releases. This means that testing is covered for a range of platforms at a relatively lower cost,” commented Suresh Samuel Jayaseelan, Director - Testing Services, CSC India.

Giving his company’s perspective, Deepak Bhatter, Testing Head at Intelligroup, said that the company brought in significant process and domain knowledge of enterprise applications coupled with application testing. It is helping customers around all the key areas of SaaS applications, thereby providing a value addition and reducing the cost associated with quality assurance and testing.

Practical advantages

As testing in the cloud is an on-demand service, scale-up or scale-down provisioning is much faster, turnkey and several times cheaper for organizations with evolving application needs and fluctuating demand for IT infrastructure.

Among other practical advantages, we could clearly say that cloud-based tests are much more versatile. They can easily handle 10,000, 20,000, or even 100,000 users from a virtually infinite number of generation sites around the world. The trick is to pick the sites that best mimic your expected Internet traffic. Secondly, they are much less expensive. They are executed on cloud environments and use cloud bandwidth. This means that clients do not have to make large investments in infrastructure or connectivity. The software used is also deployed in a SAAS model, so it is effectively priced and customers merely pay as they go. Finally, these tests are very fast to setup and execute.

“An ideal testing environment should mimic the actual production environment (including the hardware) which becomes expensive. Cloud testing helps do away with this. Software testing requires realistic bandwidth to simulate this, which is not always available within the enterprise. Load balancing is a critical parameter that needs to be tested and is at risk of being compromised if adequate IT infrastructure is not available,” highlighted Balaka Baruah Aggarwal, Senior Manager - Software Research, Springboard Research.

One area where we would probably see a practical advantage is where Web-based applications are involved. The ability to test a Web application at a particular scale at the level at which it is expected to perform is a great advantage. Such infrastructure most probably will not be available internally to a corporation.

The principal advantages here are the ability to obtain computing resources from the cloud as-and-when needed to perform testing for a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the lead-time that it would take to purchase and maintain those computing resources within an organization.

Indian market scenario

The Indian growth story in this sector is going to be enabled by IT. IT use and implementation is still restricted to large corporations in India; cloud computing and specifically testing in the cloud will bring about the required efficiencies and operating model for large scale IT implementation and utilization in India.

According to Springboard Research, the Indian market will see a gradual uptake of testing in the cloud as awareness spreads. With software adoption steadily on the rise, cloud testing has good potential in the Indian market.

As more applications are converted or developed on the Internet, industry experts feel that cloud testing will become the fastest growing performance test method. Moreover, customer adoption for SaaS-based applications in India is an area to which attention must be paid. With the adoption of cloud based applications on the rise, cloud testing is also expected to grow. As more independent software companies in India develop SaaS applications, it will further fuel this segment.

Cloud testing with its many advantages such as cost-effectiveness and scalability (giving access to tens and hundreds of required machines) is a strong enabler to maintain competitiveness in the software testing market and companies will therefore increasingly embrace cloud testing.

nivedan.prakash@expressindia.com