Cloud Testing: Bug-proofing parachutes, err, in the sky

MUMBAI, INDIA: If this sounds like that manager from TV series 'Outsourced', yes, it's so much fun to not remember actual names. Imagine giving nick names to people and saving those embarrassing awkward hemming and hawing moments. Just pick up one overriding thing - the dressing style, the way a person smells, talks, snorts, walks and you are good to go; never having to torture yourself with those much-tougher-for-our-lazy-brain name plates.

If this was possible for all the trends that walk around in IT corridors, it would be a treat. Big Data could be called Mr. Grizzly Hair, DevOps the Bulging Buttons, and SOA Mr. Nice New Belt. In that case, virtualization damsel would surely be tagged as Missy Pretty Fake Eye Lashes, and may be her sidekick As-A-Service guy can be labeled as the Pizza Boy Dude.

Not running the risk of letting mainframes stay orphaned yet again, we would name them Mr.Poker Face. After all, the jury is still out on whether they are sticking around or heading for the door? Anyways, talking of the door, the new kid who has entered- wearable technology - has already earned himself the appellation Mr. Polka Dot Tie (It's so hard not to miss his presence).

There is someone else who is not much of a greenhorn though and strangely it seems tough to find an apt pet name for this boy. Spiderman? Or may be Jedi?

Cloud Testing phenomenon that has caught up so much attention in both developer and enterprise universes lately, stays unchristened yet.

Meanwhile, Gartner's recent report on ‘Competitive Landscape: Social Computing and Mobility Hasten the Use of Cloud Testing Tools' gleans some interesting observations on cloud testing market and how need for scalability, elasticity, flexibility and cost is pushing testing tools into the cloud.

Report Analyst and Principal Research Analyst, Gartner Asheesh Raina, would certainly be the right person to help us devise a perfect name for this force here. As he takes us through all those real vs perceived gains, pitfalls and promises of cloud testing, we also see how it stacks up on adjacent models and dynamics of development world viz agile programming, DevOps, QA, load/performance acid tests and more.

Why don't you start by cherry-picking the most watch-worthy findings of this report?

Well, from what we reckon, cloud testing is witnessing increasing adoption because of cloud, mobile, social computing and big data. Combined, this Nexus of Forces continues to push a plethora of small and large cloud testing providers to use a variety of architectural underpinnings and is creating a diverse vendor landscape. Now, cloud-delivered testing tools operate on a different economic basis and have a more streamlined delivery model. This difference in the cost model is challenging to traditional testing tool providers.

What is catalyzing this new model?

Mobility has changed a lot in the recent past and made everything so accessible while it is also affecting a lot of enterprise applications. The requirements of testing have seen new parameters too. Testing has taken a new and much more critical shape when so many applications are on the fly. End user variable per se, like kind of device, need or geography are enormous today. The global business environment that is coming up is accelerating cloud testing in its own ways. On Cloud, you can be a resource sitting anywhere and yet you can simulate different environments at any level you want and with a real-time effect. All that without need for that expensive a hardware as needed before. Leveraging Cloud for that kind of testing is not only economical but it is also means leveraging the ecosystem thus meaning in turn that you can use a lot of innovation happening around the world.

The list of benefits of this concept is incredibly long : it's better than in-house, it can mimic real-time environments, it saves infrastructure costs, it pushes collaboration to new levels, it makes room for complex testing, it gives better quality feeds, it catapults Time-To-Market (T2M) and is apt for scalability testing and so on. But how much of this is still tucked in theory?

Anything which stays and is accommodated in the market takes that level because there is a need for that in the market. Otherwise it would be sidelined soon. Today, even if you do not have the resources, your partners in the market can do testing for you. Cost is just one part of the slew of benefits that this model can bring in. There are still many things you just cannot do on-premise. Like testing for a branch in South Asia while you are in a different geography. Why to get bogged down by questions of skill availability and timing when you can use an entire and alive-and-kicking-with-fresh-stuff ecosystem that can do it?

There have been voices on the other side wondering if cloud testing will pass the litmus on load testing or mission-critical stuff. Is it still more complacently applied on web applications?

Major pulp of this usage is web-based applications but the rest of the side is emerging. Drivers are the same. Still, not everything is bolted on to mobile and many companies are still testing the waters on non-web stuff. Mobility is picking high-interest levels among CIOs so need for an enterprise application around mobility is high. Lot of work is happening on web-based applications as of now. Many companies are open to the idea; especially the more aggressive ones and we can see some change soon.

Your report mentioned that software testing is still a major part of SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle), like some 25 per cent. So can we expect Cloud to be harnessed on other SDLC areas someday too, like quality or design?

There is something called APaaS (Application Platform as a Service) already where you get a platform to develop an application that is going to be used on-premise. So a moderate use of Cloud is possible.

How can we juxtapose the spotlight on agile programming or DevOps with the Cloud model. How is the programming terrain changing in that sense?

Agile is more of a philosophy and just one of the ways of programming. Waterfall method still has a lot of users. Many do a mix-and-match with agile and conventional approaches. If two people are coding it could mean doubling of resources and slight difficulties. DevOps is again a new concept, bringing six sigma side of operations in a new avatar to IT. It is an emerging concept as I see it, at least in application development sense. Organisations are trying to achieve maturity. India is will take some time to absorb new trends but some industries are doing it, because every major implementation means a major decision. So for IT service providers, DevOps would make more sense. It complements Cloud Testing that way. It is a methodology because of the stress on putting processes in place irrespective of technology. It won't matter then if testing is in-house of on Cloud as long as they move from A to B as designated, and Cloud Testing is also the exact spot to make testing cheaper. Many tools in DevOps are Cloud-based. They are pretty mainstream and mature but incremental enhancements will keep happening.

Let's spend a minute of the naysayers' side. What about lack of standards, limitations of configurations or lack of band-width to simulate real-world environments? Or questions on security of code, predictability bias or skill-set/talent-angle effects that Cloud testing is still flanked with?

I would say the concept is still a work-in-progress in that sense. There are a lot of glitches we not know of yet. As more and more use case scenarios go into it, more issues, questions as well as clarity will come out. Even political angles, depending on geography choices can affect this trend. Unless there is a defined policy, yes the concept can open quite a Pandora box of questions. Many issues may appear ahead that we still don't anticipate now.

What are vendors doing right ? Or otherwise? What should be their approach from here on?

We can recommend that vendors must address top user concerns, such as integration with existing/on-premises tools, costs and security, through well-articulated marketing messages and during presales discussions. Cloud testing providers must emphasize their ability to leverage direct or indirect presence in various locations for load testing, especially in emerging markets because of the huge volumes coming from there. Vendors must showcase their ability to provide load-testing controllers in different locations, including emerging markets.

Is the concept good news for programmers also? In the sense of job and career impacts?

When the computer came in, people thought it would displace human jobs but on the contrary employment increased. Cloud testing can open so many doors for programmers with much more resources, use-cases, tools, models, languages and what not.

What about the enterprise side? What would you advise them?

If you do not watch out for Cloud testing, someone else might. It is about being in sync with technology. What's wrong with improved agility and the fact that you can test an application for many possible scenarios? It will certainly be a good option for SMEs who cannot set up a full-blown lab. Cloud is a great way for CIOs too - for testing all those ideas you never dared to test. Even if they show a failure outcome. It's better than not having the outcome at all, right! Like the guy who worked on inventing bulb, and how he was happy to find that he knew 1000 ways of doing it wrong. I guess in IT even the failure cycle is important and that can happen faster, better with Cloud Testing.

Yeah, Mr.Smart Apron can be a good name for Cloud Testing?

What? I didn't get the question.