Best Practices for Testing Cloud Infrastructure

by Jennifer Watson Blogger | Writer | Social Media Geek

Cloud testing means testing all cloud based applications that utilize resources found in the cloud. This means testing any element including software, hardware or the entire infrastructure necessary to carry out the tests.

Cloud testing services provide viable solutions that transform the way testing is done and can help organisations boost operational performance by cutting down the costs of testing. Consequently, this also eliminates chances of any negative impacts of mission-critical production applications.

Here are few best practices for testing cloud infrastructures:

Testing Load

Load testing is also an important factor when system stability is considered especially when user count is in multiples of hundreds, or even thousands.

Performance Testing

Performance testing is used to measure response times and isolate issues that are directly related to specific actions while the system is subjected to increasing load from various locations and multi-user operations.

Stress Testing

Because of the nature of cloud infrastructures, it is important to test system issues at breaking points. Often times, these breaking points are 2 to 3 times, or even more of the maximum expected usage.

Fail Over Testing

Fail over testing is conducted under expected load and simulated component failure. Just like in a web environment, fail over testing can help determine what would happen if multiple servers are being used under maximum expected load and what would be the result if one of them fails unexpectedly.

Governance Risk Compliance Testing

The GRC test is focused at identifying vulnerabilities, risks and threats associated with all the three components of cloud computing namely, Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). The test also suggests controls which have been incorporated by analysing the best practices from the industry.

Browser Testing

While browsers aren’t really necessary in cloud based software applications - particularly if thin client software is implemented - in most cases a number of different browsers are used.

It is imperative to identify the top 5 most used browsers by global usage and ensure that the test plan includes testing all applications with these 5 browsers.

If you tend to script at the browser end, you need to be prepared to face a number of incompatibilities. All cloud-based applications should be designed with no browser scripting if you expect a variety of browsers to be used.

A company like Lean Security can help you adhere to the best practices in cloud infrastructure testing. Get in touch with them today.