Mobile App Testing in Cloud Environments

Cloud computing and storage have quickly become two of the most important tools available for mobile app developers. Cloud platforms allow developers to build websites and apps ranging from the most basic to the extremely complex. Google recently announced that companies will be able to use the Google Cloud Platform and its Kubernetes product to test how their infrastructure will handle varying levels of traffic. According to Sandeep Parik, a Google solution architect, the goal of the rollout is to “eliminate the need for organizations to invest in expensive hardware and network infrastructure for conducting tests.” The benefit to the enterprise client is that they are able to run massively scaled app testing workloads at a significantly reduced cost compared to if they were using a dedicated infrastructure. In today’s ultra-competitive and ultra-saturated world of mobile apps, having an inexpensive and safe place to test your product cannot be taken for granted.

Workload testing is one of the most important aspects of a new application’s lifecycle. Without the proper environment to test in, there is a chance that when the app goes live it will encounter situations that were not present in the testing environment. Because the Google Cloud platform has a much larger capacity compared to most enterprise infrastructures, it is able to handle a greater number of permutations of user workloads. By being able to put an app through its paces before it is launched, the developer is able to determine its baseline performance and make changes if necessary. Furthermore, by using cloud-based testing environments, developers are able to see in real time how their apps handle changes in load. During testing, they are able to measure metrics such as latency, failure rates and other issues that may arise.

For companies that develop and test mobile apps, the ability to use the Google Cloud Platform offers an amazing opportunity. Organizations that maintain their own dedicated testing environment end up spending more on labor and capital compared to if they were using Google’s solution, because the Google solution is not continuously in use. If a company does build out their own infrastructure, it will be capital intensive and afterwards they will be left with a fixed capacity. These issues would not be a problem for Google. The pricing model that is used for the Google Cloud platform is also very elastic, depending on a firm’s individual needs.

It wouldn’t be outrageous to predict that in the next few years, all app developers will be looking to implement testing in cloud environments. Getting familiar with the Google Cloud Platform and other cloud solutions would be a good way for them to get started.

We offer a similar solution at Apexon — the mobile private cloud environment. This enables users to provision any device they want from our virtual private cloud quickly, and we provide 100% cross-platform testing support on iOS, Android, Windows and more. To learn more, click here.