Cloud-Based Automation Testing: How It Enhances Test Coverage and Efficiency

1. Cloud-Based Automation Testing: The Future of Scalable and Efficient QA

2. Cloud technologies have taken the world by storm, allowing people to save their resources and time significantly for computing needs. They eliminate the need to spend money, time, and effort on setting up and maintaining a physical infrastructure. As a result, most development companies are shifting to cloud technologies to improve their overall efficiency. This rapid increase in the shift to cloud technologies has stimulated the adoption of automation testing on the cloud. It refers to utilizing cloud computing environments to test software solutions and their individual components for the intended functionality. Cross browser testing plays a crucial role in this process, ensuring that applications function seamlessly across multiple browsers and devices. Cloud-based automation testing accelerates the software development process, allowing companies to shorten products’ time to market. In this article, we aim to introduce you to automation testing on the cloud and its types, benefits, different tools, and major challenges.

3. Automation Testing on Cloud: Definition, Types, Process, Benefits, & Tools Let’s discuss all about cloud-based test automation here. Starting with the definition: What Is Automation Testing on Cloud? Cloud-based test automation is a software development method that uses cloud technology to accelerate testing and software releases. This is accomplished by ‘spinning up’ test environments on-demand, allowing your software development teams to continuously develop, test, and release digital products without the need for new infrastructure. As a result, more test environments equal faster test. This is an excellent method for modernizing your software development, but it is not a one-size-fits-all solution. If you’re testing your software on-premises and releasing it quickly enough to keep up with user demand, that’s fantastic; keep it up if your existing

4. infrastructure provides enough test environments for your teams to fix bugs while also releasing new features. So that’s how you were. Cloud-based test automation is ideal for teams looking to reduce testing cycles and increase release velocity. It has obvious advantages, but it can also present some difficulties. Whether you move all of your testing to the cloud, combine it with your existing infrastructure, or keep all testing on-premises, it must be considered as part of your company’s software development strategy. Whatever strategy you choose, you must ensure that keeping the lights on does not come at the expense of innovating and future-proofing your organization. Cloud testing focuses on essential components such as: ● Application: testing includes functionality testing, end-to-end business workflows, data security, browser compatibility, and so on. ● Network: This includes testing different network bandwidths, protocols, and the successful transfer of data over networks. ● Infrastructure: This section includes disaster recovery testing, backups, secure connections, and storage policies. It will help if you ensure that you validate infrastructure for regulatory compliance.

5. Type of Automation Testing On Cloud: Cloud computing offers unique possibilities for test automation, extending coverage beyond individual applications to the very platform itself. Here are four distinct approaches to automation testing on cloud: 1. Cloud Infrastructure Testing: This approach assesses the overall functionality and performance of the underlying cloud platform, including scalability, elasticity, and resource management. Cloud vendors and large enterprises often undertake this type of testing to ensure the reliability and efficiency of their cloud infrastructure. 2. Cloud-hosted Testing: This refers to utilizing cloud resources to execute traditional test automation, such as web UI or API testing. Leveraging the cloud’s scalability and elasticity allows you to run tests on multiple, geographically distributed virtual machines, improving execution speed and parallel testing capabilities. 3. Cloud-based SaaS Testing:

6. For applications specifically delivered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), automated testing focuses on both functional and non-functional aspects, including: ● Functional testing: Validating core functionalities and user workflows ● Non-functional testing: Evaluating performance, scalability, security, and compliance with relevant regulations. ● Security testing: Identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities in the application and its cloud environment. 4. Hybrid Testing: This combines elements of the previously mentioned approaches. For example, you might use cloud-hosted testing for web UI automation while simultaneously performing performance testing on the underlying cloud infrastructure. Hybrid testing allows you to optimize your testing strategy based on specific needs and resources.

7. Benefits of Automation Testing On Cloud: 1. Scalability Cloud computing has always supported quickly scaling up IT resources as demand changes with minimal disruption. The same is true for cloud-based test automation. As a result, organizations can increase or decrease their testing capabilities as test requirements change by automating the scaling of test execution using cloud infrastructure. This solves a long-standing issue in software testing where conflicts arise when teams compete for limited resources. What’s more important: releasing a much-desired feature or fixing a bug that’s causing problems with an existing version? This is an all-too-common issue when you have a limited number of test environments. Teams can now spin up test environments for any story branch at the touch of a button and create whatever is required to test a new feature or fix a bug. Your teams now have instant access to testing infrastructure without the limitations or delays associated with physical hardware or local installation.

8. 2. Improved collaboration Cloud technology enables teams to collaborate on common goals, whether your coworkers are down the hall or halfway around the world. By automating test execution in the cloud, your distributed Dev and QA teams can collaborate on the same products in real time, eliminating bottlenecks that have previously defined siloed teams. Cloud-based test automation provides faster feedback loops, giving your teams better visibility across the CI/CD pipeline as well as actionable insights into how your SUTs perform. This speeds up software deployment, giving your company a competitive advantage by bringing digital products to market faster than competitors. 3. Future-proofing your business Future-proofing your business is dependent on your employees having the time and energy to think of new ways to provide superior products to your customers. People waste too much time on repetitive tasks that they do not believe can be effectively automated. Humans have traditionally been tasked with testing user journeys outside of the ‘happy paths’ that your test scripts can automate, as in exploratory testing. AI-guided exploratory testing vastly improves the test coverage of your app without requiring human intervention.

9. The increased levels of test automation enabled by automation testing on the cloud as it allow your teams to focus on other, more human-centric testing. Accessibility and usability can be prioritized to ensure that your applications reach their full potential. You can also devote time to resilience testing, which will allow you to understand how well your applications and systems respond to and recover from stresses and shocks. 4. Reduced costs Another advantage of moving your test automation to the cloud is that it saves you money. Buying servers, data centers, and other physical hardware on your own is costly, not to mention the associated maintenance and labor costs to keep everything running. And, if your company is rapidly expanding, the cost of provisioning new servers to meet ever-increasing testing requirements skyrockets. All of the above are eliminated in cloud environments. In addition, your cloud service provider will cover all hardware, infrastructure, and maintenance costs, removing prohibitive upfront costs. Because you can create numerous on-demand test environments in the cloud, you can dynamically adjust your testing capacity to meet your needs. In addition, the shortened release cycles enabled by cloud-based test automation boost your teams’ efficiency.

10. 5. Parallelization Cloud-based test automation improves test execution scalability. Parallelization allows testing teams to run multiple pre-configured test environments simultaneously, simulating various testing parameters of your systems under test (SUT). This method enables multiple virtual machines to run different software versions of the same application. Alternatively, the same software can be used on various devices, browsers, and operating systems. When tests in these environments are finished, the results are reported back, and the machines can be spun down and destroyed with no user data retained. Challenges in Cloud Testing 1. Data Protection and Privacy Because cloud applications are multi-tenant in nature, the risk of data theft is always present. Therefore, suppliers should provide users with assurances about their data security as part of a cloud testing strategy. 2. Short period of notice

11. Existing customers are given a short notice period of (1-2 weeks) about upgrades from cloud providers. This is a significant issue when manually validating changes to your SaaS application. 3. Checking for interface compatibility When a cloud service provider upgrades, the external interface is sometimes upgraded, which can be difficult for some subscribers who are used to the older interface. Cloud (SaaS) subscribers must ensure that users can select the interface version they want to work with. 4. Data Transfer Data migration from one Cloud provider to another is a massive challenge because the database schemas of both providers may be different, and it takes a lot of effort to understand the data fields, relationships, and how they are mapped across SaaS applications. 5. Integration of Enterprise Applications Data integration validation of both outbound and inbound data from the client network to the SaaS application and vice versa is required for enterprise application integration.

12. Data privacy necessitates extensive validation to reassure SaaS subscribers about data security and privacy. 6. Simulating real-world upgrade testing The most difficult challenge in cloud testing is ensuring that live upgrades do not impact existing connected SaaS users. 7. Private cloud Private cloud networks are used by some businesses to strike a balance between the scalability of cloud technology and the security of on-premises solutions. For example, your company could own and manage a private cloud, or it could exist off-site in a data center where you pay for dedicated machines. This enables you to use parallelization and containerization to achieve faster software test automation while maintaining greater control over security protocols. 8. Ramp-up time To get the most out of cloud-based test automation, your teams will need to adjust their workflows, just like with any new technology.

13. That is why it is critical to properly plan your technology deployment, including ensuring that your people are adequately trained. You’ll also need to consider how cloud testing will interact with on-premises testing to avoid and plan around potential bottlenecks. Conclusion There are tons of benefits of automation testing on the cloud. Today, we are in a world where everything from gaming to storing data is moving to the cloud. The cloud is the future, and the combination of automation testing and cloud is the best combination for faster and performing automation testing at scale. Source: For more details, readers may refer to TestGrid.