Mobile Testing On Cloud: QA On The Go

Cloud computing is one of the most talked about topics in the corporate boardrooms of IT/ITeS companies operating around the globe. Similarly, mobile devices have made an equally comparable impact in terms of capturing the imagination of people, government and corporations alike, owing to its ubiquity and utility. Therefore, when we combine both of these, we get something which is bound to be of utmost importance, i.e. mobile cloud computing. The same has become a buzzword today, in terms of popularity amongst software technologists.

Nevertheless, there is a challenge of increased complexity of mobile computing sphere because of the fact that there are multiple operating systems, multiple browsers, and multiple devices. Mobile devices are different from personal computers. They are often constrained by limited memory and storage space, miniature display screens, standardized browsers, and unreliable network connections.
Now, when it comes to mobile devices, we have different types of mobile applications (app) which need to be tested. Core data activities, functionality & usability of the app, upgrade features, download through various media (wired or wireless), installation & uninstallation, browser support, accessibility & security are some of the tasks that are part of software testing of mobile apps.

Hence, mobile computing is banking on cloud computing to cast a win-win way forward because cloud computing can amicably address most of the hardships/challenges that are being faced in mobile computing. Hence, when computing is taking a turn towards cloud, testing would naturally get on the bandwagon. This is where mobile testing on cloud comes into picture.

Generally, cloud based testing services have a lot of features like pay per use, any time any service, desktop virtualization, scale-up & scale-down at the click of a mouse, adaptability to changing environments which make them an ideal choice from a software testing perspective. As a result, mobile software development firms are increasingly outsourcing mobile testing tasks to independent offshore software testing companies, who in turn engage with cloud testing services providers.

Offshore Software Testing has innumerable benefits. Testers have control over a range of real/actual mobile devices such as those on iOS, Android, Blackberry and Symbian OS platforms spread across diverse geo-locations. There is no better alternative than using a real mobile handset over a live wireless network to detect interoperability issues of mobile apps that usually occur due to multiplicity of platforms. So, testers use various types of testing apps to test the transfer rates (download & upload both) , on various types of networks such as Wi-Fi, 3G, Edge etc, to & from a real mobile device to the closest test server. These types of bandwidth tests across various geographies & networks help in giving a realistic idea to mobile app developers about the bandwidth requirements they should set for an application they develop targeting a particular market or region. This can be quite a colossal task considering the overkill of devices & browsers available in the market. But working on the cloud takes care of all these complexities which the testers may face. The providers of cloud testing services also offer the advantage of firewall-enabled web-based secure services access to address any security related concerns that the client may have.

Keeping in mind all the above mentioned challenges and their adroit resolutions through cloud testing, it can be safely assumed that mobile testing on cloud is and would be the in-thing for many years to come. Stats revealed by telecom regulator, TRAI, regarding the number of wireless subscribers in India reaching 881.40 million, and market research agency, Gartner, putting global mobile subscriber base to 5.6 billion, it is indeed a no-brainer that this market space is one to watch out for in the future.