Challenges for Cloud Based Applications Testing

Mobile devices have become an integral part of any person’s life. On average, young people spend about 5 hours a day on smartphones, which forces any, even the most little-known services and companies, to think about their own mobile application. That is why the main task of development is a product that can be used by any user of the customer’s target audience and at the same time remain satisfied working with it.

The mobile application is convenient: there is access at any time, and even a child can be taught how to use it. The main problem is the presence of a huge number of devices on which it should not only work but also look cool, expensive and raise the customer’s authority in the eyes of its users.

Any problem can be solved, right? The first decision that comes to mind is to evaluate the audience, the market, buy the most popular devices and test on them. But you should think about whether a tester who has completed QA training from scratch will sleep well at night, knowing that there are only 10 devices out of two thousand that could be tested? Two thousand! Can the tester count on sufficient market coverage? One of those thoughts helped to come up with the idea of ​​cloud services for testing.

The most famous services:

1. SauceLabs – saucelabs.com

• more than 800 combinations of Browser/OS/Platform;
• integration with all known CI solutions;
• over 200 real mobile devices with manual testing and screen broadcasting.

2. BitBar – bitbar.com

• 381 mobile devices;
• support for the most popular frameworks for writing automated tests.
• integration with JIRA.

3. Keynote – keynote.com

• more than 300 mobile devices;
• integration with all known CI solutions;
• huge opportunities for collecting analytics about the use of the application;
• crash reports;
• the ability to choose a mobile operator during testing, recording logs, and video.

4. Xamarin Test Cloud – testcloud.xamarin.com

• more than 2800 devices;
• is part of a comprehensive solution from Microsoft for the development of mobile applications.

Pros of cloud services:

• there is no need to maintain a device farm;
• new phone models appear in the service almost immediately;
• variety of devices;
• there is no limitation from a technological point of view as you can test both native and web applications;
• writing logs, generating readable reports, monitoring the use of memory and device processors.

Cons of cloud services:

• high price;
• there is no way to check cases related to changes in the state of the network;
• the need to book devices;
• it is possible that the necessary device will be booked by someone.

Summing up, cloud services are not a panacea for all diseases, but, using them wisely, it is possible to get as close as possible to the adaptive layout and sleep peacefully.