End-to-End Testing for IoT Eco System and Importance of Multistage Validation

The internet of things (IoT) is an intelligent technology between the real and the digital world. It is a system of interconnected devices which have the ability to collect and transfer data over a network beyond manual interference. Enterprises are getting leverage by implementing IoT in their business models to reduce the time-to-market and boosts productivity.

But as we know every technology has its own challenges. Internet of Things also faces a major challenge in terms of its testing. To build a world-class IoT product, the solution needs to be tested end-to-end thoroughly. It means every component such as a sensor, cloud access, gateway, user interface, and their inter-connectivity needs to be tested before delivering it to the end-customer. This end-to-end testing of every component broadly comes under multistage validation.

Let us understand the concept of multistage validation in more detail.

The concept of Multi-Stage Validation

An IoT ecosystem consists of multiple components like:

    1. User Access Component: Mobile Application or Web Application
    1. Cloud Infrastructure
    1. IoT Gateway
  1. IoT Embedded Devices/Sensors

Volanium-blog

Each of the above components plays a very critical role in the functioning of the IoT ecosystem which triggers the need for multistage validation. The multistage validation ensures that each component should perform its designated action as per the requirement.

It advocates the process of validating each component of IoT Ecosystem while doing the system testing with closed loop test where the forward path (from the mobile application to IoT device) and reverse path (from IoT device to mobile application) is considered.

Let us understand the concept of multistage validation in more detail with the example below:

IoT System use-case for Smart Air Conditioner

Let us say, a user wants to set the temperature of Air Conditioner of the bedroom from the mobile application while leaving from the office, then Air Conditioner sends the notification to the mobile application when the desired temperature is achieved.

The IoT Ecosystem for this use case contains the following components:

Mobile Application: User can set the Air Conditioner temperature on his/her mobile application.

User Access Cloud: The mobile application sends the temperature value on the user access cloud using Rest APIs and also updates the database.

IoT Cloud and Gateway Device: IoT cloud delivers the change temperature commands to the IoT gateway device installed at the user’s home.

Smart Air Conditioner: Gateway device sends the desired temperature on bedroom Air Conditioner and the Air Conditioner sends a notification on mobile application once the desired temperature is achieved.

For End to End testing, the multi-stage validation plays a critical role as the verification at each component level is required to ensure the system functionality.

Stage – 1: The validation requires at the mobile application level to check the mobile application functionality. Correlating with the above example, the validation, in this case, would be whether the temperature of the Air Conditioner is changed to the desired level or not.

Stage – 2: The validation requires at the user access cloud where the mobile application or web application access the cloud using the Cloud APIs. It is mandatory to ensure that the functional requirements meet at APIs and database level. Also, make sure that the changes made by mobile application and which are reflected in the database are sent to the gateway device through IoT cloud logs validation. Correlating with the example, the validation would be done to ensure that the APIs are working as expected and the changes made to the database for Air Conditioner are as expected for the desired device.

Stage – 3: Here, the verification needs at gateway stage where the IoT cloud sends the temperature change command using IoT communication protocol like MQTT, XMPP, XML, JSON. The validation is done to ensure that the correct message is received by the IoT gateway device and the message is getting forwarded to the intended end device via a communication protocol such as ZigBee, BLE, WIFI whichever is available. Correlating with the given an instance, the validation would be done to ensure that the temperature change action is made for intended Air Conditioner device over a supported communication protocol. 

Stage – 4: At last, the validation is required at the end embedded device to ensure that the action received from the gateway is reflected on the embedded device.

Corresponding to the above example, the validation would be done to make sure that the temperature gets set to the desired level on the Air Conditioner. Air Conditioner sends the “desired temperature achieved” notification to mobile via gateway and cloud. The mobile application, cloud, and gateway get validated as soon as the mobile notification generated from the Smart Air Conditioner.

Importance of Multistage IoT Ecosystem Testing:

  1. It enables testing, validation, and verification of application architecture, integration between all the components and business requirements.
  2. Able to catch the bugs at the integration level and also find the issues at the component level.
  3. Enables solution testing with the perception of end user and real-time use cases.

Volanium is an excellent solution for end-to-end testing. It is a complete testing automation framework for IoT-enabled applications. To know more details about Volanium, drop us an Email at [email protected].

Virendra

About Author: Virendra Maheta

Virendra is associated with VOLANSYS Technologies as a Project Manager with 12+ years of experience in Quality Assurance for various domains like Embedded, Networking, IoT, Telecom/VOIP, ERP. He also has suffice experience in Manual and Automation Testing Management.

Why Performance Testing is Important?

Why there is so much fuss about application testing among developers? Well, the main reason can easily be attributed to the indomitable role performance testing that plays in the success of the applications and solutions. The performance testing services should also complete their task within the stringent timeframe for the development task. So, ensuring highly reliable testing and quality assurance within the predetermined development time involves several challenges. The performance testing has undergone several approaches that we would like to see here briefly.

Agile Model & Performance Testing

An agile model of development with its concurrent focus on all attributes has proven effective for fast paced quality focused development. The challenge is how performance testing can be accommodated within the agile model of development.

Integrating performance testing practices within an agile development model requires several proactive steps. First of all, make close collaboration happen between the developer’s team with a sprint schedule and the performance testing service. Now focus on developing a variety of scenarios for testing different performance and stress points with their relative objectives and schedule for execution. Secondly, you need to soak and stress tests for a longer duration as the part of the software release process. At the same time, you need to ensure more than one performance tests per sprint to make the process even more meticulous. The agile development process can further make performance testing easier using Continuous Integration (CI) and you can easily streamline performance testing.

To integrate performance testing even more scrupulously with agile development, one needs to define the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Because in Agile model you can only have a scope of tests to a smaller extent with an enhanced frequency, you need to define an array of effective KPIs for every test.

Think Time’ Considerations in Performance Testing

‘Think Time’ is a new consideration or approach to performance testing. What does this mean and what this approach signifies? We will see here! To evaluate the system performance you need to rest it under lively and real condition. The “think time” basically refers to the time gap between the point of departure for one request and the starting of another. So, you need to check where the loading speed really goes within these two levels.

What VOLANSYS can do in Performance Testing?

VOLANSYS as an acclaimed and appreciated software developer and enterprise app developer company follows agile principles of development and ensures most robust quality assurance through granular level performance testing. We ensure highly sophisticated performance testing mechanism with our cloud-based tools and skilled professionals. We offer performance testing services for enterprise software solutions of diverse niches. Our own expertise in enterprise IT provides us a competitive edge.

VOLANSYS provides a complete range of performance and load testing solutions to its esteemed customers using an extended range of Frameworks. Our culminating Performance testing Services are designed to meet your specific needs.  We have also done performance testing in all QE domains like web applications, mobile applications, cloud APIs etc…

Some of the popular tools which we use are Web load for web applications, JMeter, LoadRunner, Blazemeter, Grinder, OpenSTA, Rational Performance Tester etc.

Do you need your performance testing for your enterprise solutions? Or, do you need an app development service with high-quality performance testing? In either of the cases, we can come to your aid. Just drop us a mail at [email protected] or call us on +1 510 358 4310.

Rajesh-Zinzuwadia-volansys

About Author: Rajesh Zinzuwadia

Rajesh is a veteran player in Embedded & QA services. He works with VOLANSYS as Program Manager and looks after QA & Automation across multiple domains. Always smiling and ready to help people grow technically, Rajesh is willing to run an extra mile and helping customers towards creating great quality products.