Quality Assurance and Cloud Migration Testing in Cloud Migration Projects

Quality Assurance and Cloud Migration Testing in Cloud Migration Projects

Quality assurance and cloud migration testing are some of the most important parts of cloud migration. The switch to the cloud is a strategic decision and should bring many benefits. It is important to ensure the quality and stability of the new system - we do this with cloud migration testing.

The goal is to test the whole system to avoid potential issues in scalability, databases, integration and other parts of the system that could cause significant breakdowns and potentially cause harm to the brand's reputation.

When we talk about testing in a cloud migration project, we refer to:

• application functional validation,
• integration testing,
• scalability and performance testing,
• security testing.

Application Functional Validation

This type of testing helps us validate if the application is ready to be moved to the cloud. The goal is to check if the application behaves as it should. The application must perform according to the service level agreement (SLA). In complex SaaS applications, we need to validate the end-to-end function of the whole application and its external services.

In cloud migration project, the following must be executed.

• Does the specific input generate the expected results?
• Does the application layout work as expected?
• Does the application use external services, and do they work properly?
• Do automated tests perform as they should?

Integration Testing

A lot of modern applications use microservice architecture. In a microservices architecture, the system is designed in a way that each component does only one thing. Components are integrated and connected via well-defined APIs. Even in simpler applications where microservices architecture is not needed, we see some sort of integration with third-party tools and services. This is usually some sort of service for processing or simply the data from another system.

We can conclude that integration testing is critical in modern applications. Usually, we identify all the dependencies to ensure end-to-end functionality.

In cloud migration project, the following must be executed.

• Does the new environment work with third-party services?
• Does the application configuration work in a new environment?
• Which application or services depend on the main application?
• Is there a need to change dependent services configurations?

Performance Testing

Performance and scalability are the most important cloud benefits. To deliver these benefits, we need to validate how the system performs under increased load. Performance testing is done with specialized tools for performance testing; if anything does not work as it should, we optimize the component that did not work as expected.

In cloud migration project, the following must be executed.

• Check which parts of the solution need monitoring.
• Carry out load testing.
• Check if all response times satisfy service level agreements under different loads.
• Check the end-to-end performance of the system.

Security Testing

Cloud security is one of the main concerns for companies moving to the cloud. We already talked about the concept of shared responsibility in the cloud. Providers such as AWS invest millions of dollars in satisfying all kinds of regulations and security requirements for even the most top-secret workloads. Without hesitation, we can say that companies experience an improvement in security levels by moving to the cloud.

As the number of cyberattacks and their sophistication is on the rise, we must validate the whole system to ensure security and privacy.

In cloud migration project, the following must be executed.

• How is data stored when idle?
• What are the compliance requirements?
• Who has access to the data?
• Where, when and why do users access data?
• What is sensitive data used, stored or transferred?
• Ensure only authorized users access the cloud network.
• Ensure appropriate measures are put in place against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

Conclusion

In this article, we talked about cloud migration testing and quality assurance. The cloud migration projects are very complex; modern companies rely on their IT infrastructure and apps. It is critical that everything works as expected and that end-users do not notice the switch. This task, although it sounds simple, is not simple at all.

We must ensure that all data and systems are moved to the cloud without any significant downtime. We achieve this with cloud migration testing; before the new system goes live, we test the whole migration procedure to the end - without a switch of the traffic to the new system. This way, we test the actual cloud migration procedure.

All the mentioned practices are part of the cloud migration project and are considered in the final test procedure.

As AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, we help companies of every industry and size solve their infrastructure problems with cloud migration.

If you want to know more about cloud migration, cloud technology in general, AWS cloud, or you want to try AWS services:

• visit our cloud migration service page;
• give us a call at +385 1 3141 562;
• contact our sales department at sales@heptabit.com.

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