We have significantly advanced since cloud computing-based applications were considered a breakthrough technology. Today, cloud-based applications are considered a crucial component of business transformation strategy as they provide benefits that are hard to ignore.

With real-time access, data recovery options, version control, and easy access to every stakeholder for collaboration, cloud-based applications are the need of the hour for better positioning in the competitive market and reducing overhead operational costs.

According to the Apps Run The World report, the cloud application market is expected to reach $168.8 billion by 2025. In 2020, the market size was $133.6 billion, and growth is accelerating at a compound annual growth rate of 4.8%. A Gartner report predicts that the cloud applications infrastructure market will experience rapid growth of 30% from 2022, followed by DaaS (26.6%) and PaaS (26.1%) applications.

All these statistics highlight one thing: there is demand in the market, and it is essential to expedite the release of cloud-based applications and features in the market. Testing and quality assurance play an essential role in ensuring the reliability, functionality, and scalability of cloud-based applications.

Cloud testing uses the third-party service provider’s cloud resources and infrastructure for testing applications, including cloud-based and on-premise applications. With its pay-as-you-go model, cloud testing is faster and more cost-efficient than traditional testing. It supports versatile testing environment simulations and offers simplified data recovery options.

This blog discusses more about quality engineering in the cloud, the challenges that software testers can face while testing cloud-based applications, and best practices.

Challenges in Cloud App Testing

Organizations have adopted cloud testing because it is challenging to execute test cases and monitor the performance of cloud-based applications. As the applications become more complicated and dynamic, it is difficult for testing teams to set up in-house testing facilities replicating real-world environments.

As your team is adjusting to cloud testing practices, here are some challenges that are bound to occur:

1. Inconsistency in Different Test Environments

Unlike traditional testing approaches, which involve testing in a controlled and stable environment, cloud testing involves many dynamic and interconnected components. There are different testing environments, such as development, staging, testing, and production, each with different configurations, dependencies, or software versions.

Testing in such environments requires the ability to replicate, manage, and test against multiple configurations, and ensuring consistency is the challenge. Small discrepancies between environments can lead to bugs that only surface in certain configurations.

For example, a feature might work perfectly in a staging environment but fail in a production environment due to differences in resource allocation or service availability. 

2. Lack of Control Over Testing Environments

Testing teams lack control over the testing environment, including the software version and configurations used for testing. For example, cloud providers provide a standardized set of configurations for virtual machines, networking, and storage. However, these configurations may not align with the specific needs of your testing environment.

Also, cloud providers frequently update their infrastructure to improve performance or respond to security issues. Changes, even minor, in VM hypervisors, network routing, or storage configuration can significantly affect your testing results.

3. Security Threats and Data Privacy

Testing in a cloud environment can expose sensitive data to external parties, especially if you use shared or public clouds. The application data may move from one data center to another. The data centers are physically located in different countries. Privacy laws differ from country to country, and compliance with data storage, management, and access regulations becomes complicated to manage.

Besides, cloud environments do not provide access to the underlying infrastructure, so there is no visibility on security controls implemented to secure the cloud. Also, cloud applications use APIs to access cloud services, and if the APIs are not secured, then there are risks of unauthorized access and data leaks. 

4. Network Latency Issues

Cloud testing practices rely on the network connection to access cloud resources, which can negatively affect the testing results. Cloud applications are deployed across multiple geographic regions to improve performance and reduce latency issues for global users. Each region may experience different network conditions, latency, or outages, which will lead to varying performance in different locations.

For example, an application is deployed in the US and Europe. Now, it is performing well in the US region, but it has degraded performance in Europe due to differences in cloud infrastructure or network connectivity.

5. Integration Testing Problems

If integration testing is performed in the cloud, it is performed on different components, such as networks, databases, systems, devices, and servers. However, since the testing team doesn’t have any control over the environment, there is a risk of a database crash, server downtime, or any other breakdown.

For example, cloud applications rely on virtualized servers, which are hosted on physical infrastructure. Cloud providers maintain these servers and can be taken offline due to scheduled maintenance, updates, or unexpected hardware failures. Thus, the entire system may fail or become unavailable for some time.

Another common challenge testers often face is low network bandwidth, which affects the testing and delivery of apps in the cloud.

Best Practices for Cloud-Based Testing

All the challenges can be easily resolved, and you should have access to a wide range of cloud-based test environment management tools and frameworks, like Testim.io and Plutora. Also, it is best to include some automated tools, like Xamarin Test Cloud, Blaze Meter, and LoadStorm, which help in overcoming the issues related to diverse components.

Here are some other best practices for cloud-based app testing:

1. Balance production loads

Cloud testing can be executed in an environment that depicts real-world scenarios. Your test cases must target relevant aspects like changing user behavior, fluctuating load patterns, and varying periods. This will ensure relevance and produce worthy results.

2. Adopt Parallelism

Parallelism is the best way to speed up testing and cover more tests. There are testing frameworks available that support parallel testing right out of the box, like JUnit (Version 5.3), Selenium Gird, and Pytest. Parallel testing allows you to run multiple scripts in parallel, and you can test your cloud-based application on two different platforms with different scripts at the same time.

3. Keep the Tests Short

It is essential to have short tests to increase your testing time and cover more aspects of testing. Not only does this practice help you to execute the tests faster, but you can find the bugs quickly and resolve them easily. Here are some tips you can consider while writing test scripts:

1. Skip the unecessary elements that are not required.
2. Increase the test execution time using Selenium request.
3. If possible, try to split the test into multiple parts or break it down into smaller tests.

4. Integrate CI/CD pipelines

You may use cloud testing early in your SDLC cycle and continue it until the end. Early integration will help detect potential issues and implement necessary solutions beforehand. You may also integrate CI/CD pipelines for quick feedback and continuous deployment. This may help you maintain software consistency, implement code changes, and support timely deployment.

5. Automate the cloud app testing process

This is one of the best ways to expedite the testing process while saving manual labor and ensuring quality. Here’s how automated testing can help:

1. The tool allows recording the cross-platform script in the cloud. Thus, testers can easily create the test script structure quickly, which can be improved with user interface elements and checkpoints.
2. The testers can directly run the existing tests in the cloud by uploading them and running them from their browsers. There is no need to install plug-ins or local software.
3. Automated tools can handle the generation and execution of testing scripts.
4. These tools run consistently and repeatedly, enabling the team to compare results over time, even if the environment changes. This ensures that results are not affected by temporary changes in the environment.
5. Automated tests can consistently stimulate complex scenarios at scale. For example, automated testing tools, like JMeter or Gatling, can generate thousands of users to stimulate high traffic.

Having a cloud-based automated testing tool in your tech stack, like LambdaTest, Testingbot, and Functionize, can simplify the testing process. For example, LambdaTest is integrated with more than 2000 browsers, operating systems, and devices. This means that you can efficiently execute the functional testing of your app on almost every combination of browser and OS.

The Bottom Line

Cloud-based testing ensures improved software quality, reliability, and easy integration within less time. Advanced strategies and best practices help companies boost their cloud testing methodologies. In the evolving and dynamic domain of cloud computing, continuous monitoring and automation enhance test case creation for accuracy. Furthermore, cloud-based testing is based on strict regulatory rules that ensure software quality management and reduce security threats.

Companies can use quality engineering principles in cloud-based testing to deliver applications and software that satisfy the highest performance standards, improve user satisfaction, and maintain technological market trends.

If you are looking for a software test automation execution, planning, and reporting portal that can be deployed on the cloud, QualiZeal Central is one such platform. It is highly configurable, fully customizable, and scalable, so you can easily run your high-value and relevant test cases on the cloud.

You can even outsource your cloud testing needs, whether functional, performance, or security, to our testing and QA team. We support end-to-end AI and automation-driven digital services to expedite the testing process without compromising the quality.