DEVOPSdigest

Performance testing is imperative for applications to perform as expected in the real world. In particular, business-critical applications need thorough testing to ensure they can bear the stresses and strains of varying demands.

However, the use of traditional performance testing software has required a significant investment of money, time and resources – serving as a barrier to adoption and leading some organizations to limit the performance testing they undertake. Traditional on-premise testing can no longer deliver the necessary level of performance assuredness necessary to compete in today’s global marketplace.

Cloud-based performance testing offers a way to test across platforms and geos without slowing time-to-market or breaking the bank. Cloud-based performance testing will ensure capacity even in the most extreme performance scenarios. By allowing test teams to instantly deploy existing performance test scripts to cloud-based load generators, the load is created on pre-configured systems provisioned in the cloud. This eliminates the effort and cost related to extending the on-premise test infrastructure which only the highest-load scenarios would need.

In addition, cloud-based services can provide a diagnosis of any performance related issues when they arise – giving teams the detailed diagnostics they need to pinpoint the nature and location of the problem in order to remediate quickly. Combined with an on-premise performance monitor, it’s straightforward to understand the demands on the server infrastructure in the data center, providing end-to-end transparency.

Cloud-based performance testing offers several benefits to support the business without disruption:

1. Assured Performance

Cloud-based infrastructures are extremely well-suited to generating the peak demands and scalability required for enterprise performance testing.

Peak load and scalability testing in the cloud takes advantage of the ability to run tests virtually on-demand. Businesses can simply schedule time for a test and resources are automatically provisioned. This makes scheduling more flexible, helping to eliminate what are often long delays as internally managed hardware is deployed and verified by the IT department.

2. Worldwide readiness

Using cloud technologies can also enable the performance management team to not only evaluate the applications’ global readiness but conduct tests across the globe by replicating virtual users in a variety of different locations to ensure the application and website can handle users far and wide.

3. Cost control

The elasticity of the cloud means that you can scale computing resources up or down as needed to ensure application and website performance is affordable. Using utility-style pricing, businesses only pay for what they use. In comparison to a traditional on-premise model, a company would have to acquire computing power to support very large user tests for the lifetime of the application.

4. Enterprise application coverage

While many applications today are entirely browser-based, that is not often the case for large enterprise applications. Some businesses may need to test multiple routes to a system for completeness – especially considering the growing number of applications now on a variety of handheld mobile devices.

Combining cloud capabilities with traditional approaches provides the optimal model to achieving high confidence in production performance, with better agility and economy than using traditional methods alone. By implementing a performance testing solution via the cloud, the IT department can more effectively and affordably manage heavy loads on the device’s website and applications.

Tom Fisher is Senior Manager, Product Marketing with Micro Focus Borland Software.