Available Tools for Performance Testing in the Cloud

Under traditional software testing methodologies, quality assurance professionals were often limited in their scope and ability to fully evaluate programs. However, new capabilities offered through cloud platforms will enable QA teams to expand their testing efforts exponentially to improve functionality and better meet users expectations. Performance testing in particular has become a significant test management teams and there are a number of tools available in the cloud for these purposes.

Load Testing at Scale
Since the app is going to Web-based, organizations must be prepared that there will be a significant number of people using it at once. Email is a good example of a cloud-based program that everyone is likely to leverage, and keep open, throughout the day. Business-critical apps must be ready to face this type of traffic, especially during spikes in activity.

TechTarget contributor Crystal Bedell noted that cloud testing will evaluate your current application build against the number of expected users, leveraging cloud servers to simulate traffic that would be coming from people engaging the program. These efforts can even extend globally to reflect regions where the app is being accessed.

Real-time Monitoring Systems
Another option for QA teams would be to leverage performance monitoring systems. Unlike load testing mentioned above, this tool uses real browsers to provide an accurate view of website performance. Monitoring solutions help teams have continuous oversight into user experience, utilization trends and any potential issues. This means that any problems that occur can be dealt with early, minimizing recovery time, boosting overall efficiency and ensuring that users have the responsive experience that they expect.

The other benefit to this tool is that it's platform/OS agnostic, meaning that users will see the same high-quality programs, no matter how they choose to access them. This will significantly improve overall satisfaction and help consistently deliver robust, optimal services to users.

Dynamic Load Adjustment
Some performance testing tools have evolved to take matters into their own hands at the first sign of trouble. These systems will take both monitoring and load testing aspects, but will respond to changing demand automatically. Organizations can define how they want to scale according to these types of adjustments and configure their tools to do so based on set conditions.

Many of these tools have monitoring capabilities that watch software testing metrics and policies that respond when a metric value breaches the defined threshold. This will ensure that your application is always able to handle user instances, without interrupting operations. It will also give QA peace of mind that they don't have to act on such events manually, and can spend time on other critical activities.

There are a number of tools available for performance testing, from ones that ensure apps can handle the traffic to others that monitor and act on certain sets of behavior. These types of assets will be critical for QA teams to continually improve program capabilities and meet evolving user expectations.