Performance Testing Of Distributed Business Applications

Software, the backbone of online technology, has revolutionized life by introducing efficiency, reliability, accuracy, and proper customization of customer’s needs. It has initiated new business principles and processes. It has been proved beyond doubt that implementation of digital transformation in the right direction can direct businesses towards the path of drastic business growth. Though computer users are satisfied with desktop applications, with the passage of time and change of requirements such as resource sharing, it has become necessary for technology to move towards distributed computing.

Distributed Business Applications

Software is executed or run on multiple computers within a network in a distributed application. These applications interact in order to achieve a specific goal or task, and if a node running on a particular application goes down, another node can resume the task.  Traditional applications rely on a single system to run them, where as in a client-server model, the application software has to run either on the client, or on the server that the client is accessing. However, distributed applications run simultaneously on both the client and server systems. A distributed application may also be used in the client-server model when used simultaneously on a server and client computer. Here the front end runs on the client computer and requires minimal processing, while the back end runs on a server computer as it requires more efficient processing power with a dedicated system. Examples of distributed system are Wide Area Network (WAN) applications, E-mail, Bulletin Board Systems, World Wide Web (WWW), Teleconferencing over networks, etc.

It is also essential to ensure the quality standards are met so that the software stands good for the defined business requirements, with verification and validation, or reliability estimations. Hence, Software Testing becomes an integral part of efficiently working software even in distributed applications.

Testing plays a crucial role in identifying the correctness, completeness, security, and quality of the developed applications.

Testing Of Distributed Business Applications

Software testing is a vital phase of Software development Life Cycle (SDLC). Due to highly feature-rich distributed systems, emerging technologies and growing businesses need to shift their user focus from centralized software to distributed computing, as a distributed system may be much more reliable than a non-distributed system. However, a quality product that can meet customer needs cannot be produced without testing. It is a complicated and time-consuming task to test distributed applications, and often demands equally skilled efforts as writing the application itself. Hence test suites are huge and wide-ranging that need to exercise all the capabilities of the procedures to be implemented.

Why Performance Testing in Distributed Business Applications?

Most of the business applications perform properly as long as they cater to few users – but crash when a large number of users work with the application simultaneously. In such a scenario, Load and Performance Testing become a critical factor for the success of the application, and thereby the organization itself.

In Performance Testing, the configuration of interfaces to other systems or subsystems and computers are checked. In addition, bottlenecks in the host systems can also be detected. It is possible to find such faults with Performance Testing that are not otherwise identified by individual manual testing, independent of whether or not unit tests or system tests have been performed.

Distributed Application Delivery

Challenges in Performance Testing

High-speed broadband networks with increased computing power and the growth of the Internet have immensely contributed to the usage of distributed business applications. These applications have changed the way society manages information and its services. Entrepreneurs who face stiff competition from their counterparts desire quick and responsive distributed applications that can keep their users happy and engaged. A quality assured product that meets the demands of its customers cannot be possible without testing.

Software testing is challenging, while distributed systems add another layer of complexity in software testing process due to their distributed nature. This makes identifying and rectifying long wait times, delays, errors, and service interruptions that hinder the performance of the application complex, as:

• Distributed applications use the network communication phenomena, where data is produced at one physical location, and required at one or more different locations.
• In many situations where a single computer would serve the purpose, multiple systems are still used as the use of a distributed system proves to be beneficial practically. For example, certain tasks may demand using multiple low-end computers that might be time and cost efficient to obtain the desired level of performance when compared to a single high-end computer.
• Often distributed applications run in an unpredictable environment of variant traffic, where it is difficult to identify bugs. Also, though a bug is discovered, it may not replicate because the occurrence of the exact situation is often unknown or not in control.
• Scaling a multifaceted, integrated infrastructure in distributed applications end-to-end requires managing the performance and capacities of individual components within each tier simultaneously managing the overall transaction response time of the entire system.

Suggested Solutions

• Upgrade the framework as per new technologies
• Ensure that Performance Testing Services have upgraded their baseline scripts/code/infrastructure in line with the new technologies
• Performance Testing should be performed on a regular basis on new up gradation. Regular testing makes it easy to identify performance issues during the initial stages or before going live.

Cigniti Technologies provide a range of Performance Testing solutions to its customers using Frameworks designed after several years of research by its experienced testers. The company’s Performance Testing services are designed to meet customer’s needs at any stage of the SDLC to target and solve performance defects early in the project’s development lifecycle. Cigniti draws a substantial amount of performance testing expertise from diverse applications, technologies, and distributed business applications.

For more details, log on to www.cigniti.com