Cloud Testing: Take the Road to "Real" Cloud

In 2012, it was a crucial year for the cloud to rain. Cloud computing is no longer an elegant name or sacred concept. From the country’s macro strategic layout guidance to the leadership enterprise’s design on-demand on-demand, the cloud computing ecosystem is gradually being formed. In the personal consumer market, Tencent, Baidu, Ali, Qihoo, etc. have been involved; in the consumer market, HP, Kingdee, UF and other service providers have emerged.

From an industry perspective, cloud computing will trigger a full restructuring and reshuffle of the IT industry. In the Chinese market, many traditional IT companies are actively transforming, and more cloud service companies and cloud computing companies are constantly innovating. They are committed to driving the cloud computing market to flourish, helping cloud computing to land, transforming clouds into rain, and better service. For enterprises and individuals, the benefits of cloud computing are no longer illusions.

But as a new technology strikes cloud computing, are industry users ready to face it? What kind of attitude will companies use to face this technology and model change?

Tangled to craving

When cloud computing is a new thing, the first universal attitude of traditional users must not dare to take action. Taking the case of many small and medium-sized enterprises without a server or a complete back-end IT infrastructure, the premise of persuading them to accept the public cloud service model is that they must understand the cloud computing technology and recognize the actual implementation effect. However, in the survey, most SME owners stated that they could not scientifically and effectively determine the value of cloud computing, and it was difficult to assess how much benefit the cloud computing solution could bring to them. This was the main reason for their deterrence.

On the other hand, users in large and medium-sized industries with large IT systems love and hate cloud computing. They recognize the scalable and more flexible application features of cloud computing, but in the process of considering, their concerns are more from existing systems. The business process management constraints and IT operations and maintenance challenges that may arise when the architecture transitions to a cloud architecture. Their appeal is how to achieve a smooth transition to the cloud architecture on the basis of preserving existing experience and not affecting existing businesses.

However, there is no doubt that cloud services can effectively promote industrial users' IT innovation, business transformation and upgrading, and form differentiated competition. However, at present, although cloud computing has been approved by many CIOs, it focuses on short-term economic benefits and the innovation environment is limited. Under the industry environment, CIOs are eager to acquire new technologies, but it will take time before they actually land.

Start testing water cloud computing from non-critical businesses

The financial industry can be said to be at the forefront of informationization, especially banking, insurance and securities. For cloud computing, will they continue to maintain their enthusiasm? IT experts from the securities industry said: “At present, cloud computing is not widely used in the securities industry, and there are few applications in key businesses. The pressure and challenges that computing brings to IT operation and maintenance make more securities companies choose to be cautious."

For the cake of cloud computing, how should the securities industry banish it? The expert believes that we should start with non-critical businesses and gradually move toward cloud computing. For example, you can start with the safest, most operational test environment, which can reduce risk.

"For example, when we have some old servers, storage, network equipment, etc. that are phased out, we can use them to build a virtualized environment, which is an IaaS architecture, and open up different numbers of CPUs according to the characteristics of the relevant systems. Resources, memory, and network bandwidth. After the test is complete, the resources are recycled, which not only makes use of the old equipment, but also facilitates management, he said.

Cloud Services Solve Application Testing Challenges

Hewlett-Packard's cloud-based testing service is in line with the above view. Hewlett-Packard software, which is currently the market leader in application performance, functionality, and security testing, has launched the HP ALM, HP Quality Center, HP Performance Center, and HP Fortify On-Demand SaaS services through an integrated cloud environment.

Li Yungang, an HP software senior testing consultant, stated that "the concept of cloud testing is based on a high-performance, flexible, recoverable, and secure cloud platform that helps users build applications that test private cloud environments or provide cloud testing services. If you The development team is scattered in different cities across the country, or your application delivery deadline is imminent. The cloud testing service can help users to free themselves from the tedious tasks of setting up the testing environment, preparing test tools, and convening testers, and can purchase testing services through leasing. Of course, each company will have old machines that cannot meet the requirements of the production environment, and they can try to build a cloud test platform based on these devices, run some things, turn waste into treasure."

For companies that do not have a test infrastructure, or systems that require performance verification in high-concurrency environments, the advantages of the cloud test platform are obvious. "As a cloud test user, first, there is no need to purchase corresponding hardware resources, and you can directly lease the cloud service provider's platform and corresponding software or manpower, which can save and reduce costs; second, in the face of off-site projects, through the cloud platform services More flexible.” Li Yungang concluded.

At present, the establishment and application of the cloud test platform have already existed in China. Wuxi Shanshui Huipu Information Technology Co., Ltd., relying on the technical support of the HP cloud test platform, can provide on-demand testing resources for government agencies in Wuxi Shanshuicheng Park, and can be based on Quality Center, Performance Center, and Application Security Center. Products, provide a full range of test platform services.

At the same time, we have seen that HP's testing tools have been successfully applied to financial institutions such as China Development Bank, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and CITIC Securities. The application of these tools based on the cloud environment for development and testing can be transformed into SaaS services, which can effectively help companies save hardware resources and speed up the application of the enterprise application to the market. There is no doubt that the cloud test application is a key step for the company's journey to the cloud.