A Critique of an Article on Software Testing the Cloud

This article provides a critique of a research paper on software testing in the cloud. It evaluates the title, abstract, introduction, problem statement, methodology, evaluation, related works, and conclusion. The article highlights the relevance of cloud-based software testing and its characteristics.

A CRITIQUE OF AN ARTICLE ON SOFTWARE TESTING THE CLOUD
Student
Institutional Affiliations
Tutor
Date

A critique of an article on Software Testing the Cloud
Article:
K. Incki, I. Ari, A. Sözer. A survey of software testing in the cloud. Sixth International
Conference on Software Security and Reliability Companion 2012 Jun 20. Retrieved on 15th
September from: < http://core.ecu.edu/STRG/materials/A%20Survey%20of%20Software
%20Testing%20in%20the%20Cloud.pdf>
Introduction
Software testing is an integral part of software development. It is referred to as the
process which involve steps used to verify the completeness, correctness as well as the quality of
a developed software [1]. In the process, software systems is executed while it is examined
whether the application matches its underlying specifications and whether it operates in the
environment where it is expected to operate. Besides its significance in software development,
software testing is one of the areas that have been challenging in many software development
projects. However, cloud computing has open a new door for software testing.
Cloud based software testing has its own characteristics that are interesting for devices
and the novel testing routines [2], [3]. As such, cloud based software testing has attracted
attention of many researchers in the recent times. This is exemplified by the amount of literature
on this sector. Be that as it may, a few studies lack relevance as far as this subject is concerned.
To this end, we seek to evaluate a random article on this significant sector. The article is known
as “Software Testing in Cloud” authored by K. Incki and his team. The authors explore cloud
based software testing in their article. They offer an overview of the major contributions, trends,
gaps, opportunities and challenges as well as future works in their study. Besides the tremendous
work done by the authors, we could also notice a few areas within the articles which lack some
relevance. And this is what we want to explore in this article.
Software Testing in Cloud Title and abstract
First off, the title of the document was well articulated. It is self-explanatory and clearly
elucidates what has been covered within the article. The title is up to the recommended length
when it comes to writing the title of a research paper [4]. And more, it offers, up to a decent

degree, the information on the focus of the survey. Additionally, the abstract of the document on
the other hand also clearly outline that the paper reports a systematic survey of the published
results on the comparable subject of study attained by researchers. A systematic research
presents research questions that are narrow or broad in scope and analyze literature that are
directly related to the systematic survey questions [5]. However, the study has demonstrated a
great effort into synthesizing a considerable literature, it would be essential for the researchers to
consider using research questions. This is attributed to the fact that research questions are the
catalysts of the survey. They help in providing the scope of the survey. However, the questions
may not define the end of a research, in data analysis where the data unfolds findings of the
study, there might be adjustments concerning the directions the research take.
Software Testing in Cloud Introduction
In the introduction of the document, the scholars doubtlessly explore software testing in
relation to cloud computing. The current state of cloud computing is examined and the authors
suggest that software testing is one of the relevant areas to migrate to clouds. It is further pointed
out in the study that testing new software is always expensive. This is due to the reason that it
may require costly infrastructure including storages, servers as well as network devices [6], [7].
But cloud based testing would be less expensive compared to other figuring models; this is due
to virtualization. With virtualization, the costs for installing infrastructure used in software tests
are greatly minimized, thus migrating to cloud would be a wise decision [8]. To this end, it is
worth noting that the subject of study and its relevance as far as the context is concerned have
been clearly elaborated in the study and the scholars did it in a relevant frame. Anyone who can
understand it is capable of comprehending the rationale as well as the general reason for the
research.
Problem statement
One of the key driver of a research is solving a problem [7]. Since research always starts
when we want to know something, it should provide us with the knowledge and the information
required to solve a problem and make decisions. However, the problem solved by the research
was not made clear; the study is majorly based on the software testing in cloud. The authors have
not clearly articulated what has precipitated the need for the research thus the relevance of the
paper in this context is not made clear.

Cloud computing
Additionally, the paper has explore the two key features of cloud computing. These
include the service-oriented feature, which is a way to modularize the services of a business and
virtualization features which enables abstraction of the infrastructures. The study also outlines
the key characteristics of cloud including rapid elasticity a characteristics which enables rapid
provision of new services to its end users; on-demand characteristics; measured services as well
as multi-tenant provision characteristics.
In the article, service delivery models are also comprehensively discussed, the authors
started with a software as a service SaaS delivery model where they explore various
characteristics such as the features regarding service delivery where the cloud vendors provide
all that are required to run an application in the platform. They then elaborate Platform as a
Service PaaS and its features where users provide the applications they want to deploy as the
cloud service providers offer the facilities required to run the applications. Likewise, the article
documents the third model that is the infrastructure as a service IaaS. The model is also
elaborated well; it is clearly outlined in the document that this option involve the service
provider hosting all facilities required in the platform.
In addition to that, various deployment models are also discussed in the article. The
article documents the three key deployment models in cloud computing including the public
deployment model which is available for any user, hybrid deployment model and private
deployment model which is dedicated to organizations. Besides presenting such an illustrative
piece, there was no relationship with software testing shown in the discussions. The document
could not demonstrate the relationship between the cloud service delivery model and the cloud
deployment with software testing. The article, however, examined software testing and
virtualization. In this section, major challenge in software testing including deployment is
discussed. The authors also discuss the impact of online testing and cost.
Methodology
In the methodology, the researchers mainly used secondary data. According the article,
the secondary data was collected from a bunch of literature. This was achieved with the aid of
various reference management software including IEEE, ACM, Science Direct as well as Scirus.

Various keywords relevant to the subject of the study were keyed into the search engines. The
researchers does not however clarify the quality of the data i.e. it is not clear whether the sources
were peer reviewed, additionally, the range of year of publications of the literature collected
were not specified. However, the method used for the generally demonstrate to a decent degree
what one can expect with a systematic review.
Evaluation
In the evaluation part, this section was explicitly explored the literature collected for the
study. The study resulted to 11 problem domains which were analyzed based on various
categorization including test level, type, contribution, and delivery model according to the
authors. The authors also did a tremendous job by analyzing the gap of the study. This is a
critical move as it helps in identifying the reliability of the study. In addition, testing for cloud as
well as testing on the cloud are also examined. According to the authors, texting for cloud
involve an application using parallel features of cloud. While testing on the cloud, the authors
states that the on-demand service delivery feature of the cloud based testing may attract users. It
is further explained that unit testing unit testing may be an advantage in cloud based software
testing. The article additionally, explain the verification and validation as a service in cloud
based software testing. Overall, it must be noted that the literature were well examined and the
results of the study are relevant to a considerable level.
Related works
In the related works, no clear works were cited. The authors, however, acknowledge that
there are massive literature on the subject of the study but they end up reviewing only two
articles where they examine issues associated with software testing. According to the analysis of
the literature, it is revealed-according to the authors-that that cloud based software testing is
worthwhile in software development industry.
Software Testing in Cloud Conclusion
Lastly, the document conclude that while the traditional software testing methods are still
used in cloud, the cloud computing is under a continuous change. The study findings are not
clearly elaborated. But the conclusion demonstrate that the authors have achieved their

objectives, however, recommendations were not provided. But the researchers believe that
interoperability testing needs to be focused on, according to their analysis.
Summary
In conclusion, the study that is bothering us here has demonstrated a comprehensive
analysis on software testing in cloud to a considerable degree. For the most part, the study was
well organized but there are definite needs in a few areas concerning the presentation of a
systematic survey. A few issues related to the relevance of the study were also pointed out, one
of them being considering the relationship between cloud deployment models and software
testing. Generally, the survey was interesting, informative and is of great importance in software
testing.
References

[1] W.E. Lewis. Software testing and continuous quality improvement. Auerbach publications;
2017 Jun 1.
[2] B. Koteska, A. Mishev, L. Pejov. Quantitative Measurement of Scientific Software Quality:
Definition of a Novel Quality Model. International Journal of Software Engineering and
Knowledge Engineering. 2018 Mar; 28(03):407-25.
[3] Z. Lu, W. Li, K. Murthy, S. Raghuram, inventors; VMware Inc, assignee. Distributed
software testing using cloud computing resources. United States patent US 8,949,791. 2015 Feb
3.
[4] S.B. Bavdekar. Formulating the right title for a research. Journal of the Association of
Physicians of India. 2016 Feb; 64:53.
[5] F. Pyrczak. Writing empirical research reports: A basic guide for students of the social and
behavioral sciences. Routledge; 2016 Oct 4.
[6] M. Murthy, V. Suma. Software testing and its scope in CLOUD: A detailed survey. In2017
International Conference on Innovative Mechanisms for Industry Applications (ICIMIA) 2017
Feb 21 (pp. 269-273). IEEE.
[7] K. Markande, S.M. Jayaram, inventors; Infosys Ltd, assignee. Cloud-based application
testing. United States patent US 9,047,410. 2015 Jun 2.
[8] L. Knox. Leveraging the Cloud for HDF1 Software Testing.