Cloud is now omnipresent and there is no escaping from its influence. Companies are outsourcing their testing service models to provide quality service, compliance or user-experience testing by third-parties for your applications. Testing as a Service (TaaS) is great for applications with repeatable tasks and for testing systems before a full-scale deployment or upgrade. After all, if something goes wrong, it is always better to find that out before your end-users do.

Companies can make or break their business plans if they correctly assess their testing strategies. Like all “as a service" offering, TaaS provide all types of testing including functional, performance, mobile and security, and offers on-site as well as offshore resources. Now with TaaS, there is also software testing in the cloud.

SQA Meets Testing on Cloud

Organizations in the present scenario are geared up for leveraging the true benefit of cloud. Scalability, agility and availability combined with the cost factor are the driving forces for businesses to focus on cloud technology for their testing requirements. The comprehensive test framework involves three approaches of using cloud technology in testing that depend on the type of application and the objective of the test.

• Testing on clouds – Its basically web-based software testing of application that require real-world simulations.


• Testing with clouds – Testing of SaaS applications that require multi-platform, multi tenancy and security. Applications are deployed on a cloud platform for testing, that uses specific cloud technologies, APIs for connectivity.


• Testing over clouds – Applications with components spread across multiple clouds – public, private and hybrid platforms – are the best candidates for this approach. It’s useful for legacy systems that wish to upgrade and move to cloud.

TaaS Service Model Gaining Visibility

Organizations can bring more business value utilizing both traditional managed services and TaaS services that complements it. However, TaaS offers a wider scope of services in the areas of test tools and test infrastructure including functional and performance automation services and tools, licensing costs for test tools with pay-per-use contract.

Shared resources like testing tools, web service utilities and API’s are available for all the subscribing clients that are available on-demand. The TaaS providers offer test platforms that include cloud infrastructure for testing across multiple platforms and devices.

Multiple options for cloud environment and infrastructure management. Clients are provided with virtual environments that offer choices of tools for running their tests, using their internal resources or using the vendor’s resources.

Hardware utilization for testing scenarios is created using virtual test laboratories and environments that are available 24x7. This provides flexibility and scalability without the pressure of hosting the infrastructure internally. Organizations can have strict security controls in place to ensure safety of the individual organization’s data.

Cost effective testing solutions that subscribers can utilize to maximize their testing plans and management. They can leverage the test libraries, solutions and test repositories to store their test scripts and test cases. The resources can be shared both off- and on-line by trained test personnel.

Test analysis, tracking and monitoring services are available to provide a multichannel customer experience and digital platform for organizations. They can be synchronized according to the customer’s release schedule to provide a dynamic view of the ongoing cloud testing plan.

The type of TaaS services that an organization may use depends on the business model, requirements and its set of clients. For a thorough assessment or an insight on whether ‘software testing on cloud’ is feasible for your organization, contact our Infoholic Research representative.

- Shantha Kumari,
Sr. Technical Writer,
Infoholic Research