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Say your favorite song out loud, and it immediately starts playing. Of course, if you have an Alexa speaker. Imagine Alexa crashing from time to time. A bit annoying, but still, not the worst outcome.

The failure of a smart inhaler or a sensor or the leakage of patients’ medical data are much more serious issues, making companies focus on ensuring quality of various aspects of IoT devices.

Whether it’s a smart speaker, a car, or a factory, absolutely every IoT solution should function steadily to provide a positive experience to end users. And to achieve this target, businesses should carefully plan their IoT testing strategies.

In the article I’ll tell you how IoT affects our lives and what quality aspects are key to verify and why.

IoT impact on people’s lives

According to Statista, the IoT market size will reach $800 billion in 2023 and $1,567 billion in 2025. A very considerable growth.

Graphic

Source: Statista

Nowadays, IoT is used in multiple industries where the smallest software error results in dire consequences. For example, delivering real-time data from the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT): wearable and other devices that track physical activities, sleep, heart rate, and more. This information enables carrying out diagnostics, planning treatment, and helping provide medical care when needed. Imagine a patient in critical condition but not getting medical support in time because of a glitch in the IoMT.

Or government organizations that also deploy IoT technologies to address various challenges (e.g., traffic jams or street light control). Along with that, IoT sensors embedded in urban infrastructure help create smart cities. This means that the safety and lives of millions and even billions of people depend on the trouble-free functioning of IoT products.

And now I will show you some examples that you shouldn’t turn a blind eye to if your main goal is to provide superior quality of your IoT solutions.

IoT solutions cybersecurity: always be on the lookout

Problem overview

In 2021, the number of connected IoT devices was 12.2 billion, and is projected to reach 24.4 billion in 2024.

As the number of linked software grows and the IoT solution elements can exchange information without human intervention, all of these significantly reduce system security. Moreover, today’s IoT devices collect massive volumes of end-user data: passwords and usernames, contact details, biographical and medical information. This means that companies should provide reliable and high-quality protection not only for the product itself but also for individuals’ sensitive data and the network which transmits personal details.

Let’s look at an example of how hazardous IoT devices are in the hackers’ hands. In 2017, more than 465,000 implantable pacemakers produced by St. Jude Medical had become fragile. The company quickly responded to the situation and addressed the issues. But what consequences it could encounter if the attackers gained full access to the IoMT solutions? By controlling the software and its functions (e.g., battery and heart rate), they could have damaged the lives of thousands of people. And this is pretty alarming.

Addressing the problem

Conducting cybersecurity testing is the remedy to this issue, helping ensure the safety of the whole system at all levels: network, cloud, applications, etc.

Penetration testing allows performing real-life attacks by imitating the cybercriminals’ actions. For IoT products, it’s also reasonable to carry out network penetration tests ― adopting malicious methods to reveal the network’s loopholes and eliminate them from the get-go.

To detect IoT system drawbacks, you may start with a vulnerability assessment of the solution. Checking authentication, authorization, session, multiple injections, and business logic allows ensuring a high-quality and secure IoT web device. For connected mobile apps, it’s necessary to evaluate configurations, traffic interception as well as review the source code and analyze encryption algorithms to detect any keys, logins, or passwords right in the code.

Why is IoT devices performance in the forefront?

Problem overview

Let’s take a look at one example to understand the importance of uninterrupted performance for IoT solutions. IoT in retail helps control the amount of goods on store shelves and warehouses — when needed, smart racks or fridges send a signal to refill the inventory.

Imagine a smart shop. Special RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags that are attached to the items allow transmitting the data to the cloud and monitoring the inventory and purchases. However, low performance of IoT devices in retail leads to the failure of the entire chain of stores and requires more investment, time, and efforts to recover the system’s smooth functioning.

Addressing the problem

The key question is: how to produce high-performance IoT products? These are 4 tips that will be of help:

  1. Integrating performance testing into the SDLC stages. Continuous performance testing guarantees that any changes to the code don’t negatively impact the app’s operation.
  2. Conducting load tests. They help measure app performance under specific conditions and determine the maximum load that the software and infrastructure can handle.
  3. Performing stress checks. If the load on web and mobile products doesn’t jump frequently (usually it happens during peak sales periods), forecasting either hundreds or thousands of people may connect to an IoT device is challenging. Stress testing helps assess the behavior of an IoT solution when the load is much heavier than regular.
  4. Verifying IoT’s scalability. The scalability of IoT devices depends on the number of connected software: some support more than a million solutions, others — a hundred million. Here, the main goal is to check whether the IoT product handles the required level of scalability and how it responds to changes in the number of simultaneous users.

IoT compatibility: do all elements work in harmony?

Problem overview

You have a pellet grill and the software to control it remotely: choose a recipe, set the temperature, and monitor the cooking process from your mobile app. On a Friday night, a pop-up window comes up on your phone “Please select the network,” even though it’s already running. It keeps repeating, which bothers you from a great dinner.

Let’s also look at it from the developers’ perspective. Do you know which browsers and OSs the end users are going to use? It’s hard to predict among the variety of devices. In 2021, 64% of people preferred Google Chrome over other internet browsers while 19% chose Safari. It’s hard to please everyone but businesses do their best to provide the majority of the target audience with a high-quality product that brings the ultimate experience.

Addressing the problem

So, what can help here? Compatibility testing is what companies need to ensure that IoT solution elements (platforms, networks, apps, etc.) work in tandem and make sure that the device is interoperable with multiple smartphone versions, operating systems, browsers, screen sizes and resolutions, networks, connectivity protocols, and more.

To provide seamless compatibility, companies may follow 4 main steps: analyzing business requirements and defining the target audience, choosing a testing strategy and designing tests, executing them to identify the system drawbacks, and providing recommendations on how to eliminate bugs.

Final thought

I know for sure IoT devices have made people’s lives much easier: smart homes, smart cities, smart factories — isn’t that a dream?

Due to their complexity, it’s critical to care about IoT solutions quality with great emphasis on cybersecurity, performance, and compatibility.

Don’t miss the opportunity to reach out to a1qa’s experts to ensure high quality of your IoT solutions.

“Okay, tech innovations lie at the center of my digital transformation.” But why isn’t it enough to become a leader?

Successful digital transformation is pretty much about cultural shifts that facilitate new ways of thinking, working, and problem-solving.

According to the latest researches, the majority of market players are transformation-driven while focusing on adopting technologies and creating new business models. Why does another half of respondents slow down digitalization programs?

They don’t. It’s just a range of issues that impede the digital transformation journey — the lack of change management, evolving customers’ needs, ineffective data handling, and more.

Let’s find out what helps pass digital transformation successfully and discover what role IoT-based initiatives and their timely testing play in addressing main challenges.

Is making bets on IoT a win?

While investing in the right technologies, companies strengthen competitive advantage embarking on a digital-first path.

In 2021, digital leaders increased technology spending to 55%. With that, they are 4X more likely than laggards to drive projects with technologies that provide new opportunities within the IoT presence at the helm.

What’s the buzz behind IoT?

  • Reduced costs. IoT devices are interconnected, using sensors to sharply detect any minor drawback of the equipment preventing expensive repairs on machines.
  • Enhanced workflow. While mobilizing corporate resources, including PCs, printers, Wi-Fi modems, and others, IoT optimizes the work environment.
  • Better customer experience. Along with improving internal company processes, IoT contributes to effectively interacting with end users owing to automated chatbots and dedicated apps; using devices or checking their status from other locations; automating user scenarios that include a range of apps, etc.
  • Improved mobility and agility. IoT revolution helps businesses set up virtual operational processes with minimal overhead while meeting the need for remote workers.

However, there are still some challenges when incorporating IoT-oriented initiatives into the digital transformation strategy. What are they? How to address them with IoT testing? Let’s take a closer look.

4 issues brought by IoT into digital transformation programs

By 2030, the global number of IoT devices is about to reach 25.44 billion.

Source: Statista 

Of course, this triggers difficulties with their setup.

Issue #1. Fast communication and increased load

Fast-moving data lies at the core of interconnected IoT devices and substantially impacts device performance. IoT gadgets are prone to have issues with unreliable network hardware, slow Internet connection due to generating multiple connection conditions.

Issue #2. High vulnerability to cyberattacks

IoT is low-hanging fruit for cyber attackers within a considerable volume of personal data, as IoT devices are highly susceptible to medium- or high-severity cyber incidents. So, ensuring data privacy and safety is a must when developing and releasing IoT-oriented hardware and software.

Issue #3. Lots of IoT communications protocols

Interacting amid IoT devices and their complicated logic is all about communication protocols be it MQTT, CoAP, or XMPP. They need a corresponding test design as well as right tools and knowledge on how to use them to ensure the flawless functioning of IoT-based apps.

Issue #4. A range of IoT systems

Each IoT device has its hardware and relies on software to drive it. This provokes thousands of firmware and OSs that should interact smoothly. It’s nearly impossible to verify each combination, so creating a thorough testing strategy is becoming a must.

Rightly chosen tests help prevent these problems while ensuring that IoT apps respond correctly without losing data.

4 ways to address challenges with IoT testing

Before embarking on testing, QA specialists assess the current state of IoT software and hardware, delve into its architecture, and build a strategy to cover every feature of the tested product.

To ensure high-quality and secure software operation, the strategy should include the following QA activities.

Cross-platform testing

Encompassing a tremendous number of devices, IoT creates a similar amount of hardware and software mixes. Gathering data about use cases helps define the most popular subsets while performing complete testing against them.

Cross-platform QA optimizes testing time due to running smaller sanity tests on less common combinations. With that, it contributes to accelerating time to market and releasing software faster. Also, don’t miss integration testing helping ensure dozens, hundreds, and thousands of separately developed modules work together as expected.

Test automation

Within a globally interconnected web of IoT, manual checks are just feeble to cover everything. Here is where automated testing springs into action allowing for speeding up redundant tasks and optimizing test coverage.

Of course, to make it right, QA specialists are to be adept at IoT infrastructure and test automation itself delivering value with tools they use from day to day.

With that, preliminarily specifying the testing scope and QA efforts needed enables effective QA while covering the massive volume of protocols and APIs of IoT-based solutions.

Cybersecurity testing

It helps reinforce protection layers while securing end users. With a deep understanding of the IoT architecture, QA specialists detect safety threats and address them by implementing multi-layered security tests.

Moreover, complete security testing embraces ensuring compliance with the world standards, such as OWASP, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and others.

Performance testing

A vast number of devices generates different conditions to verify. Some cases require network virtualization to imitate real systems’ behavior while covering all critical scenarios.

Higher connectivity speed, a greater volume of data, new ways of interacting — all these provoke an adjusted look at performance testing tools and monitoring. Thus, performance QA specialists should keep up with the updates, understand IoT specifics, and apply this knowledge while testing IoT products.

Summing up

Along with 5G, AI, and other technologies, IoT is the fast-coming innovation that accelerates time to complete smart homes and cities.

It’s a huge boost for digital-first businesses, though, IoT-based solutions trigger challenges on the way to adopting them.

Software testing helps address them, ensure high quality of software, and meet desired business outcomes.

Feel free to get hold of a1qa experts and improve your IoT software quality by relying on QA support.

Digital consumers are impatient when speaking about fulfilling their wishes as quickly as possible. The companies that process such requests faster than competitors do enter their list of top brands.

By being recommended to other customers, the businesses are actively growing and obtaining the desired outcomes, including increased market share, cost reduction, profit growth, etc.

For the digital consumer, it does not matter how the company grants these wishes. But many businesses have already realized that adaptation to the requirements of customers is easier when going through the process of digital transformation.

Today, we will focus on what trends and strategic amendments can help the company pass it with fewer difficulties.

Digital transformation strategy components

Each successful digitalization story begins with creating a strategy. It is no longer enough to invest only in the implementation of new technologies, e.g. connecting social networks to a website or creating a chatbot.

Digital transformation implies a significant change in the business model as well as mindset, starting from the product itself and up to improving customer service items.

Before following digitalization, make sure you have taken into consideration the customer experience issues and adaptation to the upcoming changes.

Boosting customer experience

Step-by-step work on managing CX increases the satisfaction and loyalty of current and potential clients and reduces the risk of their outflow.

Digital transformation rethinks the customer experience paradigm. Now, companies should invest in technology that helps accumulate, analyze, and apply clients’ data.

Rethinking the CX model

In addition, any company that is entering the global market should be aware of the importance of generating end-user loyalty concerning its software product. Internationalization and localization of software can ensure successful adaptation of the application to work around the globe. Have a look at what is important to consider when testing such an IT solution in the article by the a1qa expert.

Quick adaptability to the new conditions

Broadly speaking, adaptability is the speed of businesses’ changes. The company has to clearly understand its plans in the market and follow the latest trends. But introducing innovation without a clear understanding of the benefits to a business can be really harmful.

Adaptability also refers to locally tailoring a product to various formats of its usage. For example, not all companies have adapted their websites to mobile phone screens, although since 2017, mobile traffic exceeded that of the desktop.

According to a study by Oxford Economics and SAP, 93% of senior executives surveyed believe that digitalizing a business is critical to survive in the market.

The basis of digital transformation are cutting-edge technologies

For some time, leadership in the market can be preserved with no innovations adoption, but not for long. Read below about technologies that can help to stay afloat and ahead of competitors.

Internet of things

The internet of things (IoT) has become a new stage in the development of the digital world. The main feature of IoT is that there are fewer people online compared to the number of things. According to a Gartner study, the number of things connected to the Internet in 2020 will be over 21 billion items.

IoT connects the objects around us with a global network, where they exchange information and work with no human intervention. How can the IoT technology benefit to a business?

  • Helps keep track of all business assets. Sensor control systems and detectors quickly identify problems while the system independently takes measures to eliminate them.
  • Rapidly identifies problems reducing potential business profit losses.
  • Generates online analytical reports.

Within the IoT trend, digital twinning is used to digitally reflect a real physical object, process, or system and indicate how to increase their efficiency as well as track the technical health and create new technologies.

Here we provide a success story on how this concept was applied to our project.

a1qa was contacted by a company that develops, manufactures, sells, and services analytical equipment for the scientific community to ensure high-quality levels. The system under test consisted of three components: the main processing center, lab, and real devices for water quality indication that were connected to the lab.

To conduct performance testing, the QA specialists would have required to launch the whole laboratory with hundreds of computers and devices. To reduce testing time and save QA budget, a1qa specialists developed a simulator for real devices, which helped mitigate risks and accelerate time to market.

Cloud technologies

In 2009, cloud technology represented 5% of the global IT market ($17 billion). Furthermore, in 2014, business investments in cloud technologies were amounted to over $175 billion. There is no secret that this indicator continues to rise.

Cloud technologies provide convenient network access to the information fund and allow several teams to work on a project at the same time.

According to the forecasts of the international research and consulting company IDC, cloud services will be actively used in 2020 and after. This can allow companies to work anywhere and anytime.

In five years, more than half of the businesses are expected to develop 90% of cloud-based and microservices-related applications. IDC encourages them to think about it now and start working with open-source software communities.

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly improved the quality of business processes by quickly managing large amounts of information, accelerating the pace of goods production and task execution, and improving the product-user experience.

For humans, the technology has a familiar and understandable embodiment of the voice assistant. Starbucks is a good example of a company that uses AI to work with clients. Alexa’s cloud-based virtual assistant has become a waiter on the Starbucks network. A user may request: “Alexa, let Starbucks make my coffee.”

AI-based digitizing will require serious financial investments. In order not to lose money in vain, the process of introducing AI technology should begin with the definition of business goals.

Machine learning

Machine learning (ML) is one of the most sought-after technical areas for business. The main idea of ML lies in the self-training process based on a given algorithm.

This technology helps create a new line of new goods and services faster, increase the attractiveness of products for the client, and identify the patterns of user behavior.

How to use this technology? For example, some telecom companies have learned to predict the desire of customers to access a service using machine learning. The client receives an offer before directly applying for it. The user saves his time, and the company gains profit.

Big data

By now, people have formed almost 40-44 zettabytes of information, which is expected to increase by 10 times by 2025 according to The Age of Data of 2025 report.

The concept of predictive analytics is closely related to this big data helping identify patterns and algorithms in it. It is especially relevant for e-commerce brands allowing analyzing information about customers’ behavior and identifying the likelihood of purchasing in the future.

This year, predictive analytics is expected to be an investment for improving customer experience technologies.

Fast and accurate information processing creates new business opportunities. Though, it is important to remember that working with big data is always related to information security issues. The data leakage can result in million-dollar losses for companies and invaluable damage to their reputation.

To protect the brand from such major losses, you can apply to our experts to conduct accurate big data testing.

Blockchain

The analytical company Gartner called practical blockchain one of the strategic trends for 2020. Now, this technology is badly scalable and is adopted in experimental and small projects. According to the experts, by 2023, practical blockchain will become fully scalable.

By helping reduce costs, increase the speed of money transactions, and provide a more secure data transfer from transaction participants, analysts recommend thinking about implementing blockchain in the businesses in 2020.

Technologies used for digitalization

Bottlenecks of digital transformation

It is worth realizing that digital transformation remains a multi-level and multifaceted process. Although introducing advanced technologies is an investment in the future, one can bring the required profits when searching for new business solutions. Nevertheless, digitalization has its downsides.

While being over-enthusiastic at the start of the transformation, the incorrect ROI definition can also be a key mistake. The world has already seen the launch of ambitious projects and companies seeking to become leaders in digitalization, which resulted in money loss.

Another common mistake is when the businesses create a new division and turn it into a deeply integrated company. Innovations designed for good ROI become a financial burden for companies in the present situation.

What mistakes should be avoided in addition to the two named before? For example, starting the journey of transformation for the sake of transformation to support the trend. It also might be an imprudent decision to ignore the creation of a unified strategy with the chaotic usage of tools and approaches.

The process of ensuring the quality of software products is equally important. Timely testing helps release bug-free software and take care of the customers’ loyalty providing the necessary business outcomes.

Conclusion

Being an ongoing process, digital transformation is rapidly gaining momentum. The companies have to select the needed types and tools based on the specifics of their business. By using new technologies, brands continue to grow and gain a competitive advantage in the market.

However, the path of digital transformation includes some risks as well. In the case of neglecting to build a coherent strategy, choose the right toolset, and ensure software quality a company can lose its profits.

Soon, businesses can face problems of successfully existing outside the digital space. Step-by-step implementation of this process can help stay on the wave.

Are you thinking about integrating the digital transformation into your business? Request an expert consultation to do it right.

Software testing has expanded substantially from the manual approach since the 1980s. As much as the testing activities aims are altering, the QA experts have to expeditiously adjust to the numerous software testing sphere transformations.

The testing discipline will carry on augmenting. Accordingly, we’ve rounded up the top 11 tendencies that will determine the future of testing in 2019 and beyond.

Here’s what we suppose QA professionals need to focus on to stay ahead of top technology progress.

Internet of Things testing

IoT is one of the fastest developing technologies in the modern world. The latest World Quality Report (WQR) revealed that the number of IT respondents that somehow deal with IoT had risen from 83% in 2017 to 93% in 2018.

IoT devices and applications with the connection to the internet are to be tested for security, usability, and performance. Most IoT developments include such technologies as Near Field Communication (NFC), Bluetooth, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) to connect and enable communication. All these make IoT gadgets vulnerable to network-related threats that should also be recognized by QA engineers.

Artificial intelligence in testing

According to the Gartner’s 2018 CIO Survey, 1 in 25 CIOs has implemented artificial intelligence in their companies. Google, Facebook, Microsoft spend billions on artificial intelligence and machine learning initiatives.

Obviously, AI will grow further and it has its own role in testing as well.

AI can definitely streamline the process and make it smarter. AI-powered software testing can recognize the code changes, analyze them, and launch tests to make sure there are no mistakes. As of today, AI is widely used in test automation.

But in the future with the adoption of AI-powered testing, manual testers will be able to move forward their routine tasks, perform more of exploratory testing, thus reducing costs and bringing more value to the business.

In general, AI will change the profession of software testers and turn them all into test automation specialists.

But of course, this won’t happen overnight and the impact of AI on software testing is yet to be observed.

Increased adoption of Agile and DevOps practices

In DevOps, software testing starts from the very beginning of the software development lifecycle. As a result, most of the defects can be recognized at the earliest and the high-quality application will make it to the market sooner. This approach enables Continuous Delivery and Continuous Integration.

No surprise, 30% of the WQR respondents claimed these methods to be a significant aspect of their today IT business strategy.

There’s nothing path-breaking about saying that the Agile and DevOps adoption tendency will keep on gaining momentum in 2019.

Big Data is getting bigger

Data can be very beneficial to organizations. Given its proper quality, of course.

Volume, velocity, variety – these are the 3 V’s that characterize big data. Considering the exponential growth of big data generated, software testing engineers will have to continue keeping their eyes on its quality.

With the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation has come into effect on May 25, 2018, more attention should be given to data privacy. And while GDPR is only focused on Europe, many companies outside it stated they would change their data policies accordingly to keep good relationships with their customer base.

Test automation (yes, again!)

Test automation has been the key trend in testing for more than 15 years already. It is hardly surprising that the purpose of QA automation has fundamentally changed – the point is to make a high-quality product as opposed to saving the resources.

68% of the World Quality Report respondents said test automation improved the test coverage compared with the previous year when the percentage was lower by 17% and by 28% since 2016.

In other words, the contribution of QA automation in companies increases. It has undeniable pros in cost savings, removing defects, transparency testing expansion. Test automation guarantees high-grade software is delivered.

And as test automation guarantees a top-notch quality of the software, its tools will be used further to perform both functional and non-functional tests. Testing engineers will concentrate their time and efforts on running experiments and exploratory tests rather than perform routine testing.

a1qa has developed an open-source framework – Aquality  Automation. See its main benefits at the short overview of the presentation done by test automation engineer at the 9th traditional a1qa conference.

The open-source way

Manual testing will stay

Regardless test automation is becoming more popular, manual testing has much to say to the industry. There’re still some spheres like design and usability, which require manual efforts. So yes, manual testing will stay longer with us.

Performance engineering & performance testing

We’ve heard it multiple times that very soon performance engineering will replace performance testing. What’s the difference between them?

Performance testing is about preparing and executing tests, while performance engineering is about understanding how all parts of the system work together and designing its best performance.

However, performance testing is not sharply falling behind the performance engineering. According to the World Quality Report, performance testing conducted in cloud environments has grown by 14% since 2016.

Delivery cycles will get shorter

DevOps, test automation, constant improvements in communication flow have one common goal – speed up releases.

In pursuit of willingness to take a proper place in the market and provide high-quality software organizations enlarge budgets to shorten delivery processes and quicken releases.

Of course, this puts (and will put in 2019) additional pressure on QA departments and make them find imperfections and supply the finished products more frequently.

Open-source tools will prevail

Easily accessible, resilient, and free of charge – open-source products are precious and extremely helpful for IT business.

Though they don’t give a sense of security. However, frequent usage by the community helps to discover and eliminate bugs faster than you can imagine.

Cloud will get more popular

The WQR survey mentions only 27% of all applications are non-cloud based. Today cloud computing is the groundwork for other tendencies like DevOps and IoT.

The public cloud is becoming more popular – its percentage in the number of clouds’ types has got higher by 3% since 2017.

The tendency goes further – respondents prefer to use different cloud service providers, so we see the multi-cloud popularity growing.

Running tests in the cloud has its many benefits: minimum efforts required (you don’t need your own infrastructure to perform mobile and web testing), simple accessibility, and high versatility.

Security testing becomes more crucial

With the broad use of smartphones, tablets, computers, and other devices, one’s got used to relying on them for transactions. It has made security testing more crucial for every company to store shared or accessed data safe and deter security violations.

The survey states, it has grown up by 10% since 2016. Since the confrontation between security and privacy continues to grow, this testing will remain an urgent necessity for many companies.

Summing up

Forewarned is forearmed. Considering all these tendencies, organizations and businesses have time and opportunities to implement industry best practices creating unique QA approaches and ensure the impeccable quality of their solutions.

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