Load & Stress testing on Mobile device using open source

Smartphones popularity has greatly influenced mobile applications   and responsive websites. Mobiles now play a major role for conducting profitable business. Enterprise mobility is enhancing efficiency of employee communication to reach out to consumers, clients and suppliers. Earlier, when mobiles played a  less important role with respect to business applications, performance issues or outages were not attended with importance.

However, this situation no longer holds relevance to the present day. Nowadays, performance problems related to mobile applications result in huge loss of revenues, diminished productivity of the employees, damage to brand reputation, and many other significant losses.

Modern day consumers have very high expectations regarding the performance of mobile applications. This increases the responsibility of mobile application development teams who are accountable for delivering, reliable, responsive as well as well-designed applications.

Moreover, nowadays a number of diverse mobile devices has proliferated the marketplace, providing development teams of mobile application with a dynamic cross-section of platforms to test.

Mobile Testing is not similar to traditional performance testing. As mobile is entirely a different game, testing attributes and requirements are also a lot more steeper owing to its unpredictable nature. Load and stress testing are carried out for assessing the performance of the mobile under normal and extreme situations.

Load Testing:

Load testing is carried out for determining whether the application would be able to maintain the required number of users along with acceptable rejoinder times. The intention of load testing is basically to standardize the maximum load with respect to simultaneous users that the mobile application is able to sustain before it experiences system failure.

Stress testing on the other hand aims to validate the consistency of an application as well as its dependability over a significant span of time.

On the server side

Load testing is essential at the server’s end so for understanding the variations with respect to response times, delays in the delivery of significant messages, streaming of resource intensive packets, application crashes, etc.

On the client side

Load testing of mobile applications are carried out to address the general discrepancies related to the application behavior on diverse platforms and different handsets, CPU consumption and memory, battery issues as well as loading speed.

For sound testing of mobile applications,

• Selection of the right testing tool for automation for the success of a mobile application testing program is vital
• Chosen tool need to support all the desired platforms as well as testing for different screen types, input mechanism and resolutions.
• The chosen tool need be connected to the external system to carry out end-to-end testing.
• For identification of the most critical platform/hardware combination that needs testing, Weighted Device method of platform mix needs to made good use of.
• The end-to-end flow of functions need to checked on all possible mobile platforms at least for once.

One can make use of NeoLoad which is basically a performance testing tool that provides support for Mobile Application Testing.

Stress testing

This refers to software testing for assessing satisfactory performance under extreme as well as unfavorable conditions. These may be the outcome of process loading, heavy network traffic, maximum requests, etc.

It has been observed that most of the systems have been developed under assumption of normal operating conditions. So even if one crosses a limit, errors are mostly negligible in case the system undergoes stress testing during its development.

• Stress testing primarily lays major emphasis on the availability of the application as well as its error handling capability in face of unfavorable conditions such as extreme heavy loads.
• This testing is generally carried out for ensuring non crashing software that may happen owing to insufficient resources.
• It also helps in the determination of reaction of the hardware while in the stress period.
• It is used to identify errors in slowness as well as during the peak user loads, issues relating to corruption of data and security loopholes during the stress period

Stress testing of mobile applications focuses on a number of transactions ranging from identified to break transactions, as well as on those that are heavily stressed while testing. It also checks when a database is devoid of any load. The process of stress testing loads concurrent users apart from normal levels of the system for finding out the weakest link of the system.

Both types help in eradication of the performance bottlenecks that crop up when a number of users require access to a common resource. Identification of the problems with these two testing methods in the early phase, testers are able to upgrade hardware, optimize applications, or even employ effective strategies to make performance improvements before release of the software.

Gallop and Xamarin’s Joint Webinar – Mobile App Testing in Agile Environment

Gallop Solutions, a US based colocated software testing services company is conducting a joint webinar with Xamarin, a leading cloud-based mobile app development & testing platform provider based at California Thursday, May 7th, 2015 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. EST . This webinar helps developers and testers to understand the essentials of Mobile App Testing that ensure apps function and perform seamlessly on every device, delighting customers.

The Webinar is designed to help professionals to create a striking and artistic balance between UI/UX designing and performance of mobile apps. Webinar suggests required performance improvements of connected systems to enhance mobile app performance which is crucial before building a mobile product. In a situation where apps range from a number of fancy heavy weight testing tools to all-in-one tools, the webinar also helps in identifying feasible, simple tools and creating a tailored combination which proves to be efficient.

“Fixing bugs of most recent mobile app failures doesn’t create new experience for the customers.   It’s something more.. our Webinar is intended to build an approach right from designing and testing the app to evolve based on customer feedback,” said Ananth, Mobile Test CoE Lead, Gallop Solutions”. Excelling in a swift market requires ensuring quality through testing by identifying flaws beforehand and avoiding defects from creeping live. Switching from manual to automation testing, implementing Agile and Devops techniques helps in faster testing processes.

Join our joint Gallop_Xamarin Webinar “Mobile App Testing in Agile Mode” by experts Ananth, Mobile Test CoE Lead, Gallop and Spencer Montgomery, Partner Manager, Xamarin, who can help to implement strategies for a successful mobile app.

Speaker 1: Ananth Vinnakota, Mobile Test CoE Lead, Gallop

A management graduate from California State University, Ananth is an expert strategist in both business and business technology road maps. With mastery in vertical and horizontal cross platform mobile technologies and solutions, he is a business incubation specialist in mobile products integrated with cloud and big data.

Speaker 2: Spencer Montgomery, Partner Manager, Xamarin

Spencer has been with Xamarin for over a year now. Apart from being responsible for maintaining a wide range of consulting partners, he is also the technical lead for Xamarin Test Cloud and has specifically been assigned to customers throughout the Americas and APAC Regions.

About Gallop Solutions

Gallop Solutions is a US based Colocated Independent Testing Services & Specialist QA Staffing Services Company operating since 2003 with offices in Philadelphia, Dallas & California. Our services are backed by Proprietary Testing IP (Enterprise Test Acceleration Suite – ETAS) for enhanced productivity and in-house R&D teams. We are a 100% subsidiary of Cigniti Technologies, World’s 3rd largest independent software testing services company with over 1600 consultants globally across various domains with 400 located in North America.

About Xamarin:

Xamarin is the new standard for enterprise mobile development. No other platform enables businesses to reach 2.6 billion iOS, Android, Mac and Windows devices with 100 percent fully native apps from a single, shared code base. Xamarin is used by over 900,000 developers from more than 100 Fortune 500 companies to accelerate the creation of mission-critical consumer and enterprise apps. Xamarin’s global customer base in 120 countries includes Dow Jones, Bosch, McKesson, Halliburton, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cognizant, GitHub, Rdio and WebMD. Xamarin is a Visionary in Gartner’s 2014 Magic Quadrant.

Mobile Testing is much more than Testing

Mobile is not a device. It is a phenomenon which brings people together in interactions which have just begun to unfold the true potential of connectivity.  This phenomenon explains the enormous innovations that are being powered by and thereby empowering Mobile testing.

 

Mobility is the new business space which is free of the constraints of the user’s location and time zone.  But any initiative in this space is influenced by the Operating systems, platforms, device configurations, versions, network carriers. This is the reason why it is essential to test the performance, security, compatibility and functionality of the initiatives.

 

UI is not just a business requirement. It is a USP and deal clincher. It is a focal point of the entire business process. A lot of complication is required to make UI simple. The complications include input output validations.

 

User is more than just a person interacting with the organization. A user may be a marketing professional, member of the organization, a telecommuting professional with authorized access or a customer. A user provides the common sense that determines the requirements for any mobile initiative.  Thus, it pays to have a testing approach that is user friendly. This approach will save a lot of post release surprises.

 

The Organization is not just a space or an integrated workplace. An organization is the way it is extended in the mobile space while the interactions are seamlessly navigated towards the organization and managed flawlessly. Software Testing makes a difference when it incorporates all the mobile interfaces and the internal process that enable an organization’s operations.

 

Application is not just a tool. It is a process in itself and it speaks volumes about the organization’s competency and attention to the needs of the customers or users. That is why certain ‘avoidable’ defects in the application indicate inconsistencies in the processes.

 

Cloud is not just a flexible solution. It is a strategic advantage. With cost benefit, remote access and globally distributed services, Cloud is an opportunity as well as a challenge. Needless to say any cloud initiative demands meticulous testing and comprehensive coverage.

 

Upgrades are not inevitable; they are exponential leaps of innovation and business growth. Resistance to upgrades or delays are known to have caused substantial losses to well established institutions. On the other hand, hasty upgrades with insufficient testing are known to have damaged reputations in addition to financial losses. This makes Regression testing an undeniable business driver for any mobile initiative.

When the context is so mobile, the development and testing are expected to be inseparable to meet the time and quality requirements. Colocated SoftwareTesting brings the capabilities of development and the scrutiny of the testing partner to one workstation and catalyzes Software Quality with digital accuracy and human intellect.