As the development of websites and software is becoming dynamic with time and technology, Cloud Web Testing has emerged as an asset to the software and website developers. Due to the obvious benefits, there is an increase in the number of enterprises and organizations making their shift towards Cloud Testing.
Many of them are yet to make a move towards benefiting from the availability and accessibility of the resources, having shared resources that are allocated dynamically, flexible testing environments, huge cost savings, and much more.
Website Testing has become an approachable and easily scalable process with Cloud-based Testing. However, the major reason that is dissuading companies from adopting cloud-based services is the challenges that come along.
You need a comprehensive strategy to combat the challenges, considering all the perks and disadvantages of Cloud-based testing before adopting it as a website testing approach.
Let’s explore what is website testing on the cloud and how it is paving the way for QA teams?
What Is Cloud-Based Website Testing?
Cloud Testing (also termed as Cloud-based testing) refers to performing tests for any software/web application and its quality verification on the cloud. It means, running the entire manual and automation testing on the cloud, to test the website for functionality, browser compatibility, security, and end-to-end agile workflows.
Cloud testing takes the entire website testing process online making it easier, faster, sparing the hassle of maintenance, and much more.
With the constant strive to discover beneficial assets, is Cloud Testing even a choice anymore?
Here is why you need Cloud Testing.
Why Do You Need Cloud Testing?
Cloud Testing simplifies the testing process, making it easier, faster, and more practical. Here are the 2 major reasons why you need cloud testing:
The Cloud testing platforms allow multiple users and teams to perform tests on multiple devices simultaneously. Essentially, it means the hassle of sharing the test environments with other teams and users will be spared. It enhances collaboration between teams and users, and also helps monitor and track the team members’ progress.
Automated testing requires access to devices, frameworks and includes a lot of technical apparatuses such as CI/CD tools, debugging tools, etc. For an in-house device lab, it can be draining and time-consuming to set this up. After the website is ready, it requires extensive testing with increased loads. Cloud automated testing platforms already consist of these abilities and are built to support and accelerate scaling.
Cloud Testing has now become a necessity and here are its significant benefits.
What Are The Significant Benefits Of Cloud-Based Website Testing?
With due research, we have made a curated list of the top 9 benefits of website testing on the cloud. Hereunder penning down the striking benefits of Cloud Testing.
Saves Time and Effort
One of the most prominent benefits of cloud-based testing is running manual and automated tests without accessing every device and testing environment every time. It also allows you to run multiple tests simultaneously, thus saving time and giving you quick results.
You get ready-to-use environments and you save a lot of time that is required to update and maintain the servers. New devices are launched frequently in the market, and you don’t have to add them to the cloud manually anymore. They are automatically added to the cloud and the updates occur regularly. Cloud takes up your responsibility of carrying out the updates. Thus, you can use this time to focus on the other aspects of your website.
Huge Cost Savings
Setting up on-premise device labs and testing on your own infrastructure incurs high costs including testing tools licensing, renewing licenses, maintenance costs, upgrading frameworks, overhead technology costs, and much more. The resources on the cloud are shared by multiple users and organizations, therefore, the testing tools on cloud are cost-effective.
Website testing on the cloud has a ‘pay as you go’ model which lets you use the required tools only when it is necessary and thus, helps you cut down the expenses. As a result, the cost of cloud-based website testing turns out less than the traditional ones. Isn’t this an opportunity you need to grab?
Better Team Collaboration and Supports Agile Workflows
Cloud testing boosts agile workflows by providing a platform that is inherently collaborative and supports the new approach of testing. It provides collaboration between teams and multiples users by enabling them to work on the project(s) at the same time. Moreover, if you want to share any piece of information, the communication and sharing of data become easier and convenient.
Updates occur automatically on the cloud, which means all the team members will beget the most recent information frequently and monitoring team members’ progress and different activities can be also done easily. This approach will reduce the chances of errors in the system like never before.
24/7 Accessibility and Availability
Another prominent benefit of cloud testing is the 24/7 accessibility and availability. All you need is an internet connection and you can access the resources needed for testing from anywhere, anytime. Thus, you can keep up with the rapid changes, detect and debug the defects in real-time.
Cloud testing enables developers to create real-life traffic situations and replicate the customer environment. Thus, the defects can be detected at the early stages. It also makes the development of web applications and the deployment of any new pieces of code easier and faster than ever before.
Improved Efficiency and Enhanced Speed
When you perform a test on any locally hosted hardware using the local infrastructure, the test runs slower than the one on the cloud. It is because the speed and time consumption for executing the test and the number of tests you can run parallel at the same time depends on the capability of the device you are using. Cloud testing will increase productivity in less time than the traditional testing tools.
Cloud-based software/website tests run faster than the ones that are hosted on local hardware because the infrastructure is virtual. It enables you to run as many tests parallel as you want, without having you wait for one test to complete and then start the other one. Therefore, its ability to execute more tests speeds up the website testing cycle.
The unlimited test infrastructure makes cloud testing much quicker than on-premise-based platforms.
Customizable As Per Testing Needs
You scale as per your requirements. The flexibility of cloud-based testing allows you to customize your operations and tools as your requirements change. This approach will make sure that your future operations are sustained.
Cloud testing provides a wide test coverage. With this flexibility, QA experts can try and perform different sets of tests on the same device to check the impact of the program. This approach will help teams to figure out what changes they need to make in order to make the software/website more compatible with the device. It will ensure the quality of the applications is maintained.
Real-Time Report Generation
Website testing on the cloud allows you to run as many tests parallel as you want, therefore, reducing the test execution time. But what if the testing report doesn’t come just after the testing process and delays the debugging? Cloud-based testing enables real-time report generation so that the team can collaborate and resolve the issues in real-time.
As a result, the report is generated in real-time and the issue can be resolved quickly.
IT Management
With cloud-based testing, you can save the time that is dedicated to IT management, as the Cloud will take care of everything from installation to the final upgrades, also ensuring data safety. Cloud is much more reliable than other local hosted platforms, therefore, allowing your employees to focus on the core activities of the company and improving the end results.
Dynamic Testing Environment
Cloud-based testing tools offer optimized testing environments where you can add or remove the number of test environments as per your requirements, as the infrastructure is virtual and unlimited. The environments created by the cloud replicates the real environment quite closely.
It allows you to choose your OS/device test environment combinations to test your application and with the ‘pay as you go’ model, only pay for the resources you use. Furthermore, Cloud testing can streamline your QA process.
Some Drawbacks That You Need To Know
Cloud has its drawbacks and you need a collaborative strategy for this approach. We are addressing some of the major challenges in cloud testing so that you can implement them beforehand to ensure that they meet the functional and non-functional requirements.
Loss of Security
As a Cloud-based testing application is provided by a vendor, you hand over your data and information to the part, which becomes vulnerable. Choosing a testing service that offers 24/7 support can combat this problem.
Bandwidth Problems
The bandwidth keeps fluctuating as the cloud’s resources are shared between many organizations. Apply any connectivity support to help your bandwidth requirements during low connectivity.
No Backup
Cloud is online and the cloud servers are not backed up. To combat this issue, you can purchase a redundancy plan.
Over to You
Clearly, Cloud Testing is the most prominent way to meet the standards of testing and it combats traditional testing. But before migrating to the cloud, you need to understand the testing criteria that are essential for successfully testing your website/software application.
This way you choose the right cloud-based testing tools, with the right strategy and increase the return on investment. By testing the website on the cloud, teams/users can achieve their goals faster without any compromise in quality, and with minimal investment.
Cloud-based website testing is easy, fast, practical, and ensures building high-quality and cost-effective applications with greater accuracy.
