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TaaS has brought a paradigm shift in the delivery model.

Testing-as-a-Service (TaaS) is definitely here to stay. As business growth became somewhat synonymous with application performance, software testing came to the forefront as it played a significant role in an enterprise’s growth. However, over time, enterprises found software testing to be a tough task, which was mainly attributed to newer challenges in the domain of software sourcing, as well as emergence of security issues, growing technological complexities and increasing costs, among others. Usually, software testing is performed either internally, where an enterprise uses its in-house infrastructure, or outsources the job to software firms. When we consider how software testing has evolved in case of IT service providers, we find that from unplanned practices carried out between different business units, it slowly evolved into a centralized Managed Test Center approach, and then came the time when it took the turn towards institutionalizing a TCoE (Testing Center of Excellence) within the organization. With this, clients are able to enjoy a dynamically scalable framework that’s economical and empowers them to outsource their testing requirements, while steering clear of lengthy start-up durations, complex contracts and steep investments. TaaS (Testing-as-a-Service) is often called the final phase of the evolution in the testing cycle, which has been adopted steadily by more and more organizations.

What makes TaaS so popular?

Compared to traditional testing environments, a key benefit of TaaS, especially when using public cloud for the purpose, is its extremely scalable model. When you compare an enterprise’s own environment and internally managed mock-ups, this is a major improvement that not only helps deal with on-demand computing needs but can be scaled up or down too, as and when the need arises.

To handle ad-hoc and frequently changing requirements, enterprises often need space, servers and a significant investment in terms of infrastructure and resources for their software development and maintenance initiatives. However, by opting for a public cloud model, enterprises can not only deploy testing configurations and meet their capacity requirements immediately, but can even work efficiently, with less stress despite a decreased development life cycle and the pressure of reducing the time to market the end product.

As compared to in-house customized testing where certain specific tools need to be deployed, which in turn is a time consuming process, a public cloud makes such deployments easier and faster, as the latter has standardized computing power and hardware.

When it comes to costs, enterprises can benefit financially from TaaS as this model asks them to pay for the actual time spent for testing, unlike managing the in-house infrastructure where incurring annual depreciation costs and capital expenditure on testing environments eat up a major chunk of the enterprise budget.

In the TaaS model, test hardware, tools, operating platforms (Linux, UNIX etc) and application licensing are all managed by the cloud. Thus, enterprises can enjoy licensing benefits. What’s more, with the use of standardized testing tools and processes, as much as 10%-20% cost reduction is noticed, thanks to fast paced, better quality testing. No wonder that deploying test automation to cloud boosts revenue by 5%-10%. Enterprises may even leverage an extended cloud ecosystem to tap into and engage a global talent pool, which could cause considerable savings in personnel costs, as much as 10%-20% as put forward by some research results.

Challenges faced

Despite the advantages of testing using a cloud infrastructure, enterprises still find it a herculean task to get experienced testers, who are capable of crafting test strategies and executing test design as well as test automation. However, this challenge can be overcome by outsourcing testing to leading testing service providers.

In the ‘Testing as a Service’ model, these providers conduct ‘on demand’ testing by taking over the entire cloud testing program. Thus, engaging them would help organizations optimize their ROI as their internal resources become freed, while their fixed cost turns to variable cost. Organizations can even enjoy great levels of flexibility as these service providers shorten the test cycle, thereby letting them benefit from a faster time to market. Since outsourcing testing requirements frees the in-house personnel, enterprises can utilize them better by deploying them for other core initiatives, which in turn would help take the business to the next level.

How can TechArcis assist?

TechArcis has expertise in enabling independent testing services, and is far ahead of the curve in following the process of Continuous testing Integration.

We’re focused on delivering high value added engagements with measurable returns on your investment. Simplify your test data management to reduce your software development and testing costs. Talk to us today

Other Resources

• Test Data Management – Key Challenges and Test Approach
• Big Data Testing Best Practices
• A/B Testing – Where are you going wrong?

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