Few Tips to Undertake Performance Test of Web Apps in the Cloud

With the development of the cloud computing procedures and their popularity I the world of technology, most testers face the dilemma of whether to use the internal testing facilities present in the organization or the applications available in the cloud, be it private or public in nature.

With the evolution of the cloud computing systems over the era, almost all the major web applications are now being transferred to the cloud for the obvious reason of the ease of sharing among various people and the reduced cost of storing them. It is the same with the performance testing of the apps. It helps in reduction of physical storage systems which in turn reduce capital and maintenance cost of these storage system. It also speeds up the installation and update facilities of the various tools that are used for the performance testing procedure. Performance test of the web apps in the clouds also ensures that the various tests are easily shared among various testing and development teams around the world which in turn enhances the quality of the developed software.

With the advancement of the technology, the complexities of the developing an application has also increased as there are more complicated bugs that are difficult to rectify with the existing conventional performance testing tools. The best way to deal with such situation is to shift to cloud testing which provides the users with the latest and updated software testing tools which are always updated and ready for use tester. The cloud computing offers a solution to all these complexities as all the various servers, which possibly host the application over various testing teams, are connected together via the cloud.

Basically, if you are going to undertake performance test of web apps in the cloud, you need to keep in mind certain points, which will help you to form a better software as you will be able to conduct a better performance test.

1.       Before you start off with the planning or execution of the performance test on your developed software, get to know which criteria you are testing your software for, so that you can concentrate on those specific parts.

2.       While planning the performance test procedure which you are going to execute on the developed app, get to know the load limits which your app can handle and plan your load test accordingly. This will ensure that your app gets tested for the optimum load levels and provide customers with excellent service.                                               

3.       Detect the frequently occurring problems with performance that your developed app is encountering. This will give you an idea of which areas to pay more attention to while you are actually performing the test or when you are rectifying the problems that you have encountered so that your customers does not have to face the same problems while using your app.

4.       For best performance by the cloud server itself, you need to optimize the conditions of usage of the same by both the host as well as the guest users. The cloud server too is a piece of technology which has its specific limitation. In order to ensure that it provides you with best possible service, you will need to optimize its usage by the various users both in and outside your organization.

We hope this article has helped you to undertake the performance test of the web apps in the cloud with utmost ease to get the best possible end results and make an even better software to be used by your customers.

HP UFT Software and the Benefits That It Provides While Testing

HP Unified Functional Testing (UFT) software helps enterprises to automate functional testing of variety of applications. It comes with tools to help users to test web applications, mobile apps, APIs and packaged applications. At the same time, businesses can further use UFT to automate functional and regression testing of both applications and environments. HP has been updating the software on a regular basis to help users to test modern software applications in a quick and effective way. There are also a number of reasons why HP UFT software is hugely popular among modern QA professionals.

Features of HP UFT That Help Testers to Test Software More Efficiently

Supports Many Commonly Used Technologies

The latest version of UFT supports most of the commonly used technologies. Along with .NET and Java, it also supports REST, SOA and other web protocols. So the QA professionals can use a single tool to test the functionality of variety of applications including complex enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) software. They can even avail the cross-browser testing feature of UFT to write the test script once, and execute the same script to assess the functionality of a web application across major web browsers.

Simplifies Manual to Automation Conversion

Often QA professionals find it challenging to switch to a new test automation tool. But they can learn and use HP UFT without investing any extra time and effort. UFT further makes it easier for them to create new automations by importing the existing recordings and other manual testing assets. The testers can avail HPE Sprinter, an advanced manual testing solution, provided by software to convert the manual testing assets into automation resources, and reuse them to conduct functional and regression testing effectively.

Supports Keyword-Driven Testing

Unlike other popular software testing tools, HP UFT supports keyword-driven testing. The feature makes it easier for QA professionals to create and maintain test scripts. They can use the software to capture the flows from the application screen directly, and convert the captured flows into test scripts through the record/replay options. The scripting and debugging environment included in UFT further enables users to access the tests and object properties, and incorporating the required changes. The environment further helps users to create tests rapidly by providing features like auto-completion of code, built-in code snippets, and tools to validate specific activities.

Facilitates Mobile Application Testing

The users also have option to test a variety of mobile apps through UFT Mobile. They can use the solution to create a virtual mobile device lab or leverage a wide variety mobile device on the cloud. Thus, UFT Mobile helps businesses to assess the functionality and performance of their mobile devices across many devices. At the same time, the software allows QA professionals to write the test script once, and execute the same script automatically to test the mobile application across multiple devices, platforms and browsers.

Provides a Visual Interface for Web Services and API Testing

HP UFT provides a visual interface that makes it easier for users to test web services and APIs. As the interface enables QA professionals to test the web services and APIs at the headline layer, they are not required to write longer lines of code. The interface displays the GUI and API tests in the graphic area, and allows testers to assess the test flow accurately. The visual interface further simplifies assessment of complex application compositions and custom business processes by providing useful information like   activities, actions, test flow and test logic. At the same time, it effectuates API testing by helping users to generate HTTP, web and SOAP requests without writing any extra code.

Facilitates Integration and Collaboration

While testing software applications in agile environment, the testers can avail the built-in continuous integration tools provided by the software. The tool makes it easier for them to create reusable test plans, manage different versions of the test plan, and share the test plan with different members of the team. The UFT object repository manager is also designed based on an open XML format. It helps the manager to share application object definitions, assess definitions, and function libraries with different testers. The collaboration and integration contributes towards reducing the testing time significantly.

UFT is a commercial test automation tool. So businesses have to incur additional expenses to take advantage of the features provided by the software. Also, HP UFT can be used only for testing applications running on Windows Platform. However, a business can always speed up and effectuate functional testing by investing in the most recent version of UFT.