Cloud-Testing

White Paper

July 1st 2009

CloudIntelligence
Alon Girmonsky
 Cloud-Testing White Paper

Terms and Abbreviations

Load-Testing The practice of modeling the expected usage of a software program by
simulating multiple users concurrently accessing the program.

Cloud-Computing A new industry standard, offering unlimited computing resources with

payment according to consumption.

Cloud-Testing A new approach to load-testing and testing in general. This new approach
leverages cloud-computing resources to increase testing functionality and
significantly decrease costs.

CloudIntelligence A cloud-computing evangelist.

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Load Testing

In load or performance testing you want to subject your software to an equal amount of virtual
users as would be in an actual production environment. You would then want to monitor the
performance under the specified load, usually on a target-test environment identical to the
production environment, before going live.

Load-testing Target-test Production

Environment Environment Environment

Load-testing Software Should be equal Production

Software Heavy load under test Software
==
Hardware Hardware Hardware

The Traditional Way

Traditionally, to support such a test, you would need the following components in place:

A good load-testing software

Sufficient load-testing hardware for your load-testing environment

Target testing hardware similar to your production hardware for your target-test
environment with your software installed

Sufficient bandwidth for realistic simulation

Skilled professionals to run, monitor and analyze the results of the tests

Other equipment to simulate realistic environment

Cost of such an environment and the priority of load testing versus on-going production tasks,
bring decision-makers to make compromises and find less adequate solutions to the problem of
validating performance under load and throughout time.

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Compromise Cause Results

Monitor the production Lack of budget for load- The system is tested under
environment instead of testing average load only. Odds are
load-testing it that during peek load the
system will crash

Load-test the production Lack of budget for adequate Load-testing is performed only
environment instead of a target-testing environment during idle times. A real
similar target-testing problem is the risk to the
environment production environment

Test the external Lack of budget for hosting Enterprise bandwidth is a

production environment at a co-location hosting bottle neck. Simulating a non-
using load-test hardware facility realistic environment
hosted with-in the
organization's facility

Test small amount of users Lack of budget for load Either receiving a non-realistic
or use limited load-testing testing hardware simulation or the hardware is
hardware over loaded and affects the
results

Neglect load testing all Lack of budget and Risk of not sustaining promised
together knowhow performance and lost of
revenues.

Organizations invest thousands of dollars in developing software applications that are the core
business and revenue generator of these companies. Load-testing is crucial for ensuring a
software version is ready for production thus reducing the risks of unpleasant surprises under
load.

Load-testing is a way to ensure and protect the organization

investment in development and IT.

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The 'Cloud' Way (Cloud-Testing)

With cloud-testing compromises are no longer necessary. Cloud-testing leverages cloud-
computing resources and models to enable all aspects of load-testing in a highly cost-effective
manner.

With cloud-testing you have unlimited resources at your disposal, paying only for what you
consume, only when and if you consume it.

LoadIntelligence (a service by CloudIntelligence) – A full SaaS solution for load-testing of web

applications, combining state-of the-art open-source technology and cloud-computing resources
to support your entire load-testing requirements at a reasonable cost. Unlimited resources, rich
scripting and graphical functionality, zero setup time.

It takes only a few hours to launch a test of 30,000 concurrent users, complex database
transactions and authenticated users. The cost of such setup is considerably low compared to
other available load-testing solutions.

While in the past for a medium size organization, load-testing solution cost tens of thousands of
dollars, now it's down to hundreds of dollars per month – all included. For small scale
organizations it's only tens of dollars per month.

Virtual Labs (a service by CloudIntelligence) – Build your testing environment in the cloud. A
virtual lab TCO varies from about 20% to 70% of a real lab. Your virtual lab is hosted for you,
ready to execute whenever you require it. Leverage cloud resources as your load-testing
hardware using whatever load-testing software you already have, reducing the need to
purchase and maintain your own hardware. Unlimited resources are available. You pay only for
what you consume.

Cloud resources are hosted with-in Amazon EC2.

From single core to 20 cores.

1.7 GB memory to 7GB memory.

High and low performance I/O.

32bit to 64bit.

Unlimited disk space

1Gb/s throughput for each instance.

Operating systems
o MS Windows
o Linux/Unix
o And more

Data bases

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o Oracle
o MS SQL
o MySQL
o And more

On top of what already exists in the cloud, we can install almost any other proprietary or
commercial application.

The Virtual Labs services include building, deploying and maintaining your virtual environments.

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About Cloud-Computing
Cloud-computing is actively revolutionizing the traditional IT scenery. It's all about paying only
for what you consume. It is a legitimate way for companies to significantly lower costs of
infrastructure while increasing operations.

Cloud-computing enables non-expensive and rapid system deployment. Unlimited computing

resources and pay-as-you-go model allow each business to scale according to actual business
activity increase and pay only for its consumption.

Cloud-computing is supported and lead by industry giants including Sun Microsystems, IBM,
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others.

The diagram below (taken from Wiki) compares traditional IT expenditure to cloud-computing
on a cost per increasing number of users ratio.

About CloudIntelligence

CloudIntelligence is a young and dynamic company which is at present under incorporation. We

deliver cloud-computing, application-life-cycle and cloud-testing related services.

CloudIntelligence is a cloud-computing evangelist dedicated to promote and support the cloud-

computing standard through IT services, best practice methods, customized development and
products.

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