Few technologies have affected businesses quite like the cloud. The platform has quickly become a major asset to hosting information, programs and providing collaboration opportunities across teams. As such, it's no surprise that the cloud has also left a mark on software development processes. For agile testing methodologies in particular, the cloud has opened up new possibilities and is changing how quality assurance staff thinks of their capabilities. Let's take a look at how the cloud is disrupting test environment management.

Cloudy Future for Testing

Within the next few years, it's expected that the majority of business processes will be based in the cloud. However, the journey to get there can be slow in order to fully utilize the cloud effectively. According to Zephyr's annual How The World Tests Report, only 15 percent of respondents were using either public or private cloud environments, while nearly half still had their tests located on their private servers. However, it's also important to note that 36 percent had a mix of cloud and private server solutions. This indicates that an increasing number are realizing the benefits of the cloud and are adopting methods that meet their unique needs.

As cloud becomes a more viable option, there are a number of instances that would make it effective in test environment management. Zephyr's report noted that with the cloud, teams could leverage dedicated 1-1 test environments, unlimited instances that could be turned on/off when needed and more comprehensive test beds. These capabilities are predicted to make cloud-based test environments more appealing to QA teams in the near future.

Solves Traditional Issues

QA teams are adopting agile at a rapid pace, but the issues of traditional practices can still occur if these professionals don't have the right tools. Fortunately, the cloud offers a number of capabilities to QA staff to support agile and test management. According to ReadWrite contributor Tyler Jewell, legacy development environments often have limited accessibility, complicated configuration management, poor collaboration and decreased productivity. By putting testing in the cloud, quality assurance teams can have a centralized workspace, making it easy to share and collaborate across teams. This will help improve communication and project quality.

Improves Testing Capabilities

Not only is the cloud significantly improving the capabilities of test environment management, it's also boosting overall testing capabilities. As Computerworld UK noted, applications must be tested on numerous operating systems, which is not viable in an on-premise approach. The cloud, on the other hand, offers the best possible testing environments that leverage all necessary services, meaning that QA can easily assess their programs and ensure they catch potential defects. These functions will directly benefit software development and software testing processes and establish apps as products that users can rely on.

The cloud is a pervasive part of our lives, and its capabilities within the testing space are virtually limitless. By leveraging the cloud for test environment management, QA will be able to more thoroughly evaluate projects and consistently provide quality applications to users.