Cloud Performance Testing

Benefits of Performance Testing in the Cloud

All levels of testing could be performed in cloud infrastructure, but performance testing benefits greatly from cloud environments. 

Flexibility

Different levels of tests can be executed on discrete environments at the convenience of an enterprise. Performance testers no longer have to wait until the end of the testing phase in order to move to a production-like environment for their performance and stress tests. Instead such an environment can be brought into action at will. 

Simplicity

The cloud model provides a new level of simplicity in the form of bug fixing environments that can be launched as quickly as the configuration can be put in place. 

Comprehensive Testing

End-to-end tests for more generic processes can be performed in the cloud. All the necessary components can be published in the cloud to create the complete chain of systems. In this manner the overall business process can be tested;

Cost Reduction

Cloud environments could be enabled and disabled at will, reducing the cost of environmental management. Cost reduction is the major factor influencing companies to choose Cloud. As per IDC survey reports, economic benefits are the key drivers of cloud adoption. 

Cloud Testing leverages the cloud infrastructure, minimizing the unit cost of computing and increasing the efficiency of performance testing. The report on cloud enabled testing service providers reveals that the cost savings usually range from 40% to 70%. 

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that cannot afford huge capital expenditures also find cloud enabled performance testing an ideal approach. As there is no need to make upfront payments in infrastructure, Public cloud allows enterprises to shift to a flexible operating expenditure model. 

In case of Private cloud, infrastructure can be deactivated once the testing process is complete. This frees enterprises from incurring expensive operational costs.

Cleaner and Greener Testing

It is apparently true that cloud computing capabilities make it significantly greener than traditional models and this is true for testing process. By just sharing cloud resources for their test infrastructure, enterprises can use IT resources on demand and eliminate waste. Consumers using cloud infrastructures can minimize energy use and deliver environmental savings in carbon dioxide of around 55%. 

Greater Control

Cloud-based environments can provide greater control on test execution, analyze application performance and find bottlenecks while the tests are running. Cloud model allows test engineers to ascend from a few thousands to millions of concurrent users to evaluate breaking points. This gives testers a perfect picture of all possible runtime errors and adapts enterprises for peak demand times. 

Internal Lab Testing vs. Cloud Testing

So what is the best choice? 

• Setup an internal copy of production as a test environment and use several computers to generate load internally

• Setup an internal copy of production as a test environment and use load injectors on the cloud to generate load distributed geographically

• Setup a copy of production on the cloud as a test environment and use load injectors on the cloud to generate load distributed geographically

We saw that performance testing from the cloud gives you a complete understanding of the final user experience and reduce drastically investment and configuration costs. However, it may not fit to all organization (security, product licenses) and can complexify the analysis of performance bottlenecks (too much variables). 

These choices depend really on the type of application to be tested and the company culture and processes. 

A first performance testing run in a simpler lab with smaller loads is still valuable as it gives an overview of early performance issues. An application which does not pass the lab test, needs to be tuned before going to larger scale testing over the Internet! 

A load testing tool which supports both lab and cloud testing with the same use of scripts ans use cases across both types of tests is definitely a winning choice as it gives you flexibility and scalability across your project.