Table of Contents

• Testing Challenges in Traditional Setup
• Cloud Testing
• Benefits of Cloud Testing
• Cloud Testing Providers

The ‘Cloud Computing’ technology has revolutionized the IT industry and it has something good to offer to the testing industry too. After Iaas, PaaS, and SaaS concepts, there is a new testing area called Testing as a Service (TaaS) that is making waves in recent times. Increasing IT costs, shrinking budgets and growing business demands pose a great challenge for organizations. Testing as a Service or Cloud Testing answers these challenges by providing cost-effective test solutions built using cutting-edge technologies.

Testing Challenges in Traditional Setup

The first and foremost challenge in today’s organizational setup is the limited budget for the testing team. With changing economic conditions and growing competition, companies have to optimize available resources to the fullest. Allocating separate budgets for testing projects is cumbersome. Moreover, there are strict deadlines that need to be met. Secondly, the testing team creates a large number of test cases that are mostly unused. At times, they are used only once. Thirdly, traditional testing procedures are restricted by geographical locations. Most importantly, there is rapid development in the testing tools segment. World-class testing tools that are engineered with cutting-edge technologies are implemented by large enterprises and small and medium businesses cannot afford to lay a hand on these tools. Cloud Testing offers the luxury of using these cutting-edge technologies at an affordable price. Moreover, TaaS brings greater levels of agility into workflow procedures while improving the performance of the system.

Cloud Testing

Cloud Testing is the new trend in the testing tools segment that uses the cloud environment to simulate real-time traffic. It uses different testing modules to gauge the performance of an application. With cloud-based services dominating the technology, there is a greater need for cloud-based testing.

Benefits of Cloud Testing

Testing as a Service is rapidly gaining momentum in recent times. The primal benefit of a cloud testing environment is the quick deployment of testing tools required for the project. Cloud Testing offers a wide range of testing tools that are built using cutting-edge technologies. Moreover, the testing environment is deployed within a quick time. The performance of the cloud-based testing tool is very good. By bringing agility into testing procedures, cloud testing tools reduce the time taken to identify non-critical defects as well as critical defects.

Most importantly, cloud testing allows businesses to leverage available resources to a maximum extent. You don’t have to invest in various testing modules that are not used most of the time. By paying only for the services used, businesses get the flexibility to optimize budgets and leverage resources. The downside of cloud testing is that it is not suited for some applications. However, the cloud testing environment is rapidly developing to provide a versatile range of services.

Cloud testing is again different from testing a cloud. While cloud testing is about testing an application in the cloud, testing the cloud deals with the evaluation of the cloud infrastructure, applications, and environments that are provided on demand. It is to make sure that the cloud infrastructure is performing according to its cloud computing business objectives.

Cloud Testing Providers

While the cloud testing environment is still new, there are few providers that offer quality testing software. HP Load Runner is one of the leading providers of cloud testing tools. SOASTA, Advaltis, and Cloud Assault are among other contenders for this place.

The ‘Cloud’ innovation is still on the move. Mobile TaaS is another cloud-based testing environment that is used to test mobile applications. With mobile applications created in great volumes, Mobile TaaS has much more to do in the coming days.

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Table of Contents

• What is Virtualization Technology
• The Need for VT Technology
• How Does Intel VT Works
• How to Check VT Support in Processor

As one of the best practices, businesses are always on the run to leverage resources to the fullest. Virtualization has offered a great way to optimize business resources. The world is running after virtualization while multi-core, multi-tasking, hyperthreading have been in the market for too long now that for innovative businesses, they are already spent force!

The new buzzword is about hardware-assisted virtualization. The popularity of this technology is such that CPU manufacturing companies are incorporating this technology into the hardware. Intel processors are coming out with virtualization technology (VT) that offers enhanced support for virtualization technology.

What is Virtualization Technology

Virtualization Technology or VT is a hardware virtualization mechanism offered by Intel processors. It was formerly known as Vanderpool. This technology allows you to run multiple operating systems at the same time, effectively using CPU resources.

In simpler words, you get several independent computers to simultaneously run multiple operating systems. Intel VT is available in two models. X386 processors come with the VT-x version and Itanium – 64 models come with VT-i.

The Need for VT Technology

Today, there are several virtualization software products available in the market. Among them, VMWare, Microsoft, and Citrix share most of the virtualization market. For instance, VMWare offers powerful virtualization solutions that partition a single computer into multiple independent computers to run different operating systems. However, it uses complex software techniques to do so.

VT processors come with special instructions that control the virtualization software. With these processors, the performance of virtual networks is greatly improved. In 2006, Intel introduced VT-x which offered hardware virtualization but with limited speed and efficacy. Today, Intel processors come with enhanced VT technology that offers robust hardware support and greater speeds. Intel VT is not another virtualization software/technology but augments your virtualization power and offers more effective and sophisticated control over the technology.

How Does Intel VT Works

Intel processors come with a special feature called VMX or Virtual Machine Extension. This feature allows you to use 10 commands to perform virtualization tasks like turning the virtualization control on, entering each virtual machine and exiting virtual machine etc.

There are two different modes namely root operation and non-root operation. The virtualization controlling software (VMM) runs in the root operation mode while operating systems run in the non-root operation mode.

How to Check VT Support in Processor

VT in Intel processors is not a new thing. Right from 2006, this technology was being incorporated into Intel processors. However, not every CPU comes with this technology. You can easily check if your processor supports VT or not.

Intel has offered a utility called Intel Processor Identification Utility that checks your CPU for VT support. You can visit this page and download the appropriate utility file for your OS https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=7838

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Table of Contents

• Applications using intensive Disk I/O
• Applications using intensive network I/O
• Applications using intensive RAM resources

Today, virtualization has become a part of every IT infrastructure. Right from server virtualization to desktop virtualization, every resource can be virtually created to leverage available resources. While data centers are first things that are virtualized, companies have a second thought when it comes to virtualized business-critical applications. Today, the internet is full of praises for this innovative concept. However, the question here is whether virtualization is for everyone. When should you go for virtualization and when you should not? This question arises especially when you think about virtualizing resource-intense applications.

Applications using intensive Disk I/O

There are certain applications that involve intensive disk I/O operations. For instance, large graphical images, rich streaming media or large volumes of data management systems require high-speed network connectivity. Virtualization was not considered as the right choice for these tasks as the performance of most hypervisors comes down during intense I/O operations.

However, VMWare vSphere has an answer to this issue. VMWare vSphere 4 and above is designed to deliver efficient performance while running extreme I/O operations. According to the performance study on VMWare vSphere 4, each vSphere host running 3 virtual machines delivered 350,000 I/O operations. Moreover, I/O latency was under 2ms. vSphere 5 is even more better. For each vSphere host running 6 virtual machines, 1 million I/O operations were recorded at a latency of 1ms.

Applications using intensive network I/O

Another area wherein virtualization is not recommended is applications that use intensive network I/O operations. In addition, network paths that contain multiple interruptions can hamper the performance of virtual servers. VMWare vSphere 4.1 and above comes with an innovative feature called NetIOC that offers the flexibility to monitor and operate bandwidths using 10 GigE. With NetIOC, you can control specific network traffics like FT Logging, iSCSI, NFS or vMotion for guaranteed service levels.

Applications using intensive RAM resources

For several years, network experts opined that virtualization is not good idea for applications that use intensive RAM resources. When servers are loaded with extreme volumes, the performance gets affected. In certain segments like finance wherein load time and response rate is critical, virtual machines have to compete with the performance of native networks. Today, VMWare vSphere offers highly scalable virtual solutions for resource-intensive applications.

To prove this point, Intel, SAP and VMWare teamed up to run a proof of concept. As everyone knows SAP applications require intensive RAM resources. Virtualization of these applications is a tough challenge. Intel used Xeon 5500 series on VMWare vSphere Hypervisor to virtualize SAP applications. The result was that the network scaled up to 6-7 direct instances (DIs). The performance was almost equal to native applications.

Another important aspect to consider is the operational expense. When business critical applications are virtualized, unanticipated costs often creep up. As the complexity of the network infrastructure increases, expertise staff is required to efficiently handle the innovative technology. Companies have to compare the costs before and after the migration towards virtualization products. However, this transition surely offers huge benefits to the organization on the long run.

VMWare is constantly adding new and innovative features to its virtualization products which keeps it ahead of competition. In areas wherein people thought virtualization can be failure, VMWare proved them wrong.  These results certainly prove that VMWare leaves no stone unturned when it comes to virtualization of resources.

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Cloud computing and Virtualization are two terms that have become an inevitable part of most business networks. While virtualization is not a new concept, the cloud computing revolution has brought this technology into limelight. Today, most of the US and UK markets has already embraced the innovation and Asia Pacific countries are not behind either. The usage of cloud computing technologies in the Asian Pacific region has increased by 42%, according to the 3rd annual report of VMWare on cloud computing trends in 2012.

In another report on Virtualization trends, Gartner Data Center reports that the main reason for the adoption of desktop virtualization environments is to reduce TCO and operational costs. The secondary reason was attributed to mobile desktop solutions. Looking at these reports, it is an inevitable fact that virtualization technology is going to stay for some time and companies need to embrace this technology at the earliest to stay ahead of the competition. Before choosing a virtualization product, it is important for businesses to understand the concept of virtualization, benefits offered by this innovative concept and major providers of this service.

What is virtualization?

Virtualization is a contemporary innovative concept of creating virtual computing resources to leverage infrastructure, improve business performance and optimize costs. It allows businesses to run multiple instances of operating systems, servers and data storage solutions on a single machine. Based on your business requirements, you can create virtualized hardware, software, storage and desktops. Large enterprises can benefit from server virtualization concepts while small and medium businesses can leverage resources with desktop virtualization solutions.

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