The demand for cloud
automation testing is increasing day by day. This is because working with cloud
testing tools provides numerous benefits like reasonable pricing, enhanced
scalability, and easy availability. Cloud testing is completely different from
traditional manual testing. Traditional manual testing involves starting a process and running it
through to completion, all manually by spending a lot of time and physical
effort. While cloud automation involves running tests that simulate real user
experience.
When testers get the
benefit of automating all the repetitive tasks in the cloud, there is a sense
of confidence among them that enables them to focus on the pain points of other
tasks. Cloud-based testing offers multiple computing environments to test the
applications with real-world internet activities. There are different types of
cloud testing that are used in different ways such as SaaS, PaaS, and laaS.
The right tool for cloud
automation testing directly impacts the entire automation effort; this can take
a considerable amount of time. If the chosen tool is good enough and a perfect
fit for the requirement then, the automation would be effortless as well as
practical.
Hence, you need to put
more effort into the selection process by knowing all the steps that help to
choose the right tool and also what factor to consider while selecting the
right tool.
Before diving into
knowing the process of selecting the right tool for cloud automation it is
important to understand what cloud automation testing is and why it is
important. Let's quickly start.
Cloud Automation Testing
It is testing an
application using cloud infrastructure or cloud-based testing tools. Cloud
automation testing process, helps organizations to reduce manual work by
connecting the testing process to the cloud environments.
Cloud testing lets you
automate long-running testing to reduce time to market and increase efficiency.
Instead of repeatedly launching and managing external services, Cloud Test runs
them as part of the development process on the cloud. It also provides key
information needed to optimize the application's performance on a dedicated
platform.
With the Cloud Test
Automation feature, you can configure an automated test to execute in the cloud
whenever a new build of your mobile app is available in the Developer Center.
Cloud Test Automation is
an application testing automation service that enables testing teams to
automate their development, quality assurance, and release processes through
the use of APIs organizations can choose the plan between a freemium model or a
basic plan, depending on their needs and budget.
Why cloud test automation is important
There are several
reasons why test automation in cloud environments is beneficial. Here are a
few.
Geolocation testing- It is essential in testing the application that
is allowed outside your region or in other countries. It tests according to the
region accessed by following certain rules and guidelines of different regions.
To avoid any trouble, geo-location testing is important. Test automation cloud like LambdaTest, which provides automation
testing on the cloud, is equipped with geo-location testing features.
Advanced tool
integration- In the cloud, you get
the CI/CD pipeline integrations already installed. You just need to utilize the
integration to ensure that code is continuously assessed during the deployment
process.
Reduced overhead- Another benefit of performing automation testing
on the cloud is that it helps to reduce the overhead of managing and
maintaining cloud infrastructure setup and focus on test execution.
Faster results– You can execute the test cases parallelly which
means on multiple devices simultaneously. This considerably helps in bringing
the execution time lower than sequential testing. Allowing your team to get
results fast.
Better collaboration- Because the testing environments exist on the
cloud, it does not concern your location. Real-time collaborating features on
the cloud let the team contribute together at whatever stage they are. It
allows multiple teams across locations, and even remote employees, to access
the same cloud configurations and connect.
Reduced costs- Since you get everything set up on the cloud
without individually buying, maintaining, and configuring expensive hardware,
you save costs.
Testing in the cloud
allows you to spin up any number of staging environments to the specifications,
also, automating the testing process frees up valuable resources that can
be put toward better quality development, and tool improvements, and boosts
team productivity.
Now that we know the
importance of cloud test automation. It is to keep in mind that all the
above-mentioned benefits can only be achieved with the right cloud test
automation tool. So let's discuss some factors that contribute to selecting the
right tool for cloud automation testing.
Factors to Consider While Choosing the right tool for cloud test automation
With the number of
choices available, the right tool selection can be confusing.
Before choosing a cloud
testing automation tool, consider these factors involved in the selection
process. This will help to elicit the best tool as per your needs.
Identifying the need for the selection of a tool
The first thing to
consider is the requirement of the tool. Because going into a long process of
finding a good tool is useless without knowing and being aware of the needs.
Today’s world of technology and testing is all about delivering a large number
of quality applications with fewer resources and that too in a shorter time.
Keeping this standard,
the test cycle needs to be repeated numerous times to achieve the following
requirements. Like Improved test effectiveness, enhanced quality, boosted test
coverage, less time to run repetitive tests, and cost savings.
Choosing the right tool
helps in fulfilling these requirements as well as in reducing time to automate,
better reusability of code, reducing maintenance cost, and higher ROI.
External Integration
Automated test case
execution can reduce a lot of burden on testers. So while selecting a cloud
test automation tool it is important to carefully analyze the supported
integration with the other external tools and make a selection accordingly.
Look for one that can
manage test scripts and store automation test results in the tool. It must also
have the ability to schedule and launch tests both locally and on the remote
host. The tool must support continuous integration is also desirable because CI
tests get launched automatically. Integration of bug-tracking tools is
essential for any test team because it makes their testing process very much
easier.
Platform support
This requirement has
become a necessity due to the growing number of platforms. Once a test script
or test case is created, it is a must requirement for an ideal automation tool,
that should be able to test the application on all supported platforms with minimal
change. The tool needs to be compatible with Windows, macOS, Unix, Linux, Web,
Mobile, etc. There are tools like Selenium that support different platforms.
While setting the goal
for an automation tool, make a list of all the possible platforms the tool may
run on and check if the automation testing tool has support for doing
cross-platform testing for all required platforms with maximum reuse of the
test scripts.
Ease Of Use
Along with being an
all-inclusive one, the chosen tool should be understandable and easy to use.
Based on the complexity of the tool, many are often easy to work with during
the initial stages, and others can be painful during the usage stage when it is
moved above the basic features. This led to ending up spending a lot of time
programming and maintaining the test scripts.
Thus while starting out,
it is important to achieve a basic point of test velocity. Therefore, it is
best to choose a tool that the developers, test automation engineers, and
non-programmers can handle easily. This will help them to streamline the
learning process.
Automation testing tools
like LambdaTest have the flexibility to make even complex tests easy for anyone
new to test automation. The tests are stable and reliable and do not produce
duplicates.
Reusability
To avoid the repetition
of efforts by writing the same code multiple times in multiple test cases it is
idle to choose tools that provide the ability to reuse the already created test
steps in different test cases and projects.
License Cost
An important concern
while choosing any product or service is the cost. It is also the case when
choosing a testing tool. Another important factor to consider when choosing a
correct automated test tool is to have a balance between the needs and the budget.
You cannot just go with a free tool just to save on the license cost.
But, you also need to
consider the amount of time being spent on automation. So, before deciding on
the budget keep the following points in mind.
- If the automation tool does not need you to hire new resources, it can be considered a saving. Because more people require to work on the tool and the machines being used for automation are considered as the amount spent on automation.
- Time spent on learning the tool also decides your budget. If the tool provides a low learning curve, this indirectly saves the cost. As you don’t need to spend time and resources on learning the tool or employing resources skilled in that particular tool.
- If the tool takes less time to create and maintain test cases, take it as a saving in cost, because it saves time.
Reporting
A good tool should
provide full visibility of developer activity and lifecycle processes from
requirements to testing and fixing defects. Another important aspect while
choosing a cloud automation test tool is to check whether the tool allows
customized reporting and by what means the data can be exported or imported
from the tool. Test case creation and execution would be useless without a
useful report.
Reporting is a critical
factor to consider because test engineers highly depend on reports generated by
the tool so that they can know the number of open defects and how much time it
will take to resolve them.
A reliable automation
tool must deliver the following features in their reports, test plan progress,
test case execution video, Screenshots for test cases failed and passed, test
status by suites, test status by area, the indication of failed test cases,
test case to be automated, etc.
LambdaTest cloud for test automation
An automated testing
environment is more complicated to set up and execute than manual testing. The
complication gets doubled when there is a need to maintain an in-house device
lab. It’s a huge task and effort-intensive to regularly update them with the thousands
of new devices released every year and invest significantly in maintaining
desirable levels of uptime and security.
Because of these
reasons, it is easier to opt for cloud testing tools and platforms or a cloud
device farm like LambdaTest. It allows testing without any overheads associated
with an in-house device lab making life easier for testers. LambdaTest is a
cross-browser compatibility testing platform that enables testers to run tests
remotely and on a wide range of more than 3000 real devices, browsers, and
operating systems combinations. It spares the QAs effort to maintain or
update device labs.
LambdaTest cloud
platforms are set up to facilitate tests for multiple users and teams on
multiple devices simultaneously to accelerate and enhance team collaboration
without compromising accuracy. Some of the key features it provides are-
- parallel executions connected to the cloud infra to help test faster.
- In-depth report generation.
- Continuous integration support with CI/CD tools.
- Data-driven testing, schedule, and run functionality to schedule the test scripts to run at a specified time.
- Record and replay feature,
- Remote test management.
- Better collaboration where multiple people from the team can collaborate from the ease of their location and contribute to the test creation.
- Both manual and automated testing of web and mobile applications and more.
