QA engineers can use AWS services to automate and streamline their testing processes and ensure that their applications are ready for deployment.
The purpose of this article is to highlight the most beneficial AWS services for QA and Test engineers and why they are beneficial.
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Compute Category
1- Amazon EC2
Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) is a web service that provides resizable computing capacity in the cloud. It allows QA engineers to test applications and systems in a variety of environments, including different operating systems, hardware configurations, and network configurations.
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A benefit of using Amazon EC2 for QA is the ability to quickly spin up and down testing environments. In this way, QA engineers can efficiently test new features, fix bugs, and perform regression testing.
Furthermore, Amazon EC2 offers a wide range of instance types and sizes. This allows QA engineers to choose the right amount of computing power and memory for their testing needs. A variety of storage options are also available, including Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) for persistent data storage and Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) for object storage.
2- Amazon Lightsail
The Amazon Lightsail cloud computing platform lets developers and businesses manage virtual private servers (VPSs). The service offers a simple, scalable solution for hosting websites, applications, and data at a lower cost than Amazon Web Services (AWS).
One of the main benefits of using Amazon Lightsail for QA is the ability to set up and tear down environments quickly and easily. This means that QA engineers can test different configurations and environments without the need for physical hardware or lengthy setup processes.
You can use Amazon Lightsail to create an e-commerce website for test automation practices, more details can be found here
Create your e-commerce website for test automation using Amazon Lightsail and PrestaShop
3- AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda is a serverless computing platform that lets you run code in response to specific events. Lambda allows QA engineers to test their code and applications without having to setup and maintain their own infrastructure in a serverless environment.
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Lambda requires some knowledge of programming and cloud computing. Besides setting up an AWS account, you will also need to install the necessary AWS CLI. After setting up your environment, you can create a Lambda function and specify the events or triggers that will invoke it. As soon as the specified events or triggers occur, your Lambda function will execute the code you wrote.
AWS Lambda can be used to run the automated test scripts with Selenium WebDriver, Playwright or Cypress on scale on the cloud quickly and efficiently.
Containers Category
4- Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS)
Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) is a fully managed container orchestration service that allows QA engineers to run and manage Docker containers on AWS. With ECS, QA engineers can easily test the containerized applications with minimal effort.
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5- Amazon EKS
EKS or Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes is a managed service that makes it easy to deploy, manage, and scale containerized applications using Kubernetes. EKS is fully compatible with the open-source Kubernetes API, so you can use the same tools and plugins that you use with any other Kubernetes deployment.
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As a QA engineer, you can use EKS to test your applications in a Kubernetes environment without having to set up and maintain your own Kubernetes cluster. EKS takes care of the underlying infrastructure, so you can focus on testing your applications.
EKS offers a number of features that can be useful for QA engineers, including:
Automatic scaling: EKS automatically scales your clusters up or down based on demand, so you can test your applications under a range of load conditions.
High availability: EKS automatically replicates your applications across multiple availability zones to ensure high availability.
Integration with other AWS services: EKS integrates with other AWS services, such as Amazon RDS and Amazon EBS, allowing you to easily deploy and manage your applications in the cloud.
Application Integration Category
6- Amazon SQS
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) is a fully managed message queueing service that enables you to decouple and scale microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. It makes it easy to build and maintain asynchronous workflows, allowing you to send, store, and receive messages between services, without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure.
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As a QA engineer, you can use Amazon SQS to test various aspects of your application's performance and reliability. Here are a few examples of how you can use Amazon SQS in your QA testing:
Load testing: You can use Amazon SQS to send a large number of messages to your application, to test how it handles high levels of traffic and concurrent requests. This can help you identify bottlenecks and performance issues, and optimize your application for scalability.
Integration testing: You can use Amazon SQS to simulate different service dependencies, and test how your application interacts with other components of your system. This can help you ensure that your application integrates seamlessly with other services and that it can handle failures and other errors gracefully.
Automated testing: You can use Amazon SQS to automate your testing processes, by setting up triggers and rules to run tests based on certain conditions. For example, you can use Amazon SQS to trigger a test whenever a new message is added to the queue, or whenever a message is processed by your application.
7- Amazon SNS
Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) is a cloud-based messaging service that enables QA engineers to send and receive messages and notifications between distributed systems, servers, and clients. With SNS, QA engineers can quickly test and debug the communication and messaging capabilities of their applications and systems.
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Some potential use cases includes:
Sending notifications to a QA team when a new build or release is ready for testing.
Receiving alerts when there are issues or failures in the application during testing
Sending messages to trigger automated testing scripts or processes
Receiving notifications when certain events or thresholds are reached in the application (e.g. high traffic, error rate, etc.)
SNS offers a range of delivery options, including SMS, email, mobile push notifications, and more, making it easy for QA engineers to test and validate the messaging capabilities of their applications.
Database Category
8- Amazon RDS
RDS or Relational Database Service is a fully managed database service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that makes it easier to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. It supports a variety of popular database engines, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server, and allows you to choose the configuration and resource capacity that best fits your needs.
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You can use Amazon RDS to set up test environments for your applications, run database performance tests, and perform data integrity checks. Some of the tasks you might perform when testing an application with Amazon RDS include:
Setting up multiple test environments with different database engines and configurations
Populate test databases with sample data
Running database queries and analyzing the results to verify the accuracy and performance of the application
Performing database backups and restores to test the reliability and recoverability of the application
Ensuring data integrity by running tests to verify the correctness of database transactions and constraints
Storage Category
09- Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is a cloud storage service provided by AWS. It is designed to store and retrieve large amounts of data quickly and efficiently.
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Amazon S3 can be used to store test data and test results. This allows QA engineers to easily access and analyze data from different test environments and iterations. For instance you can send use generate test reports using Allure report on the CI server and send the files to S3 bucket to use it as a static website to displaying the test results.
Developer Tools
10- AWS CodeCommit
AWS CodeCommit is a fully managed version control service that makes it easy for QA engineers to store, track, and collaborate on code. With CodeCommit, QA engineers can easily create and manage Git repositories, view and compare code changes, and review and merge code changes with others. CodeCommit also integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, such as AWS CodeBuild and AWS CodePipeline.
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11- AWS CodeBuild
CodeBuild is a fully managed build service that compiles source code, runs tests, and produces artifacts that are ready for deployment. QA engineers can use CodeBuild to automate the build and test process for their applications.
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This service allows you to build, test, and deploy your applications quickly and efficiently. You can use it to automate the build process, run tests, and deploy your applications to various environments.
12- AWS CodePipeline
CodePipeline is a continuous delivery service from AWS that helps automate the build, test, and release process. QA engineers can use CodePipeline to set up automated testing as part of the release process, ensuring that code changes are thoroughly tested before they are deployed to production. It allows for automated testing and deployment of code changes, ensuring the quality and reliability of applications.
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Front-end Web & Mobile Category
13- AWS Device Farm
AWS Device Farm is a cloud-based testing service that allows you to test your mobile and web applications on a wide range of devices. It provides access to a variety of physical devices for testing applications on real hardware.
You can use Device Farm to test your applications on real devices, including smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers, running different versions of operating systems and browsers.
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Device Farm offers a number of features that can be useful for QA engineers, including:
Wide range of devices: Device Farm has a large pool of devices that you can choose from, including popular smartphones and tablets running Android, iOS, and other operating systems.
Remote access: Device Farm allows you to remotely access the devices and interact with them as if you were physically using them, making it easier to debug and troubleshoot issues.
Supports different test automation framework such as XCTest
XCTest UI for iOS, Instrumentation for Android, or cross-platform such as Appium.
Also there are built-in testing types such as UI Automator, explorer (Android) and fuzz (Android and iOS).
Related Resources
Create your e-commerce website for test automation using Amazon Lightsail and PrestaShop
Run your security static analysis tests for Android apps on the cloud with MobSF and AWS
Why Software Test Engineers should know about Cloud Computing?
Thank you for reading and happy testing!
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