WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT) TESTING

INTRODUCTIONThe Internet of Things could be the biggest software development and testing opportunity of all time.

Though devices such as tablets, phones and wearable's may already seem global, the IoT which is a vast, networked array of sensors and embedded systems.

It can eventually scale-down all of them in its global reach and number of services and applications.

IOT BRINGS NEW CHALLENGES AS WELL AS EXTRAORDINARY SCALE

A 2015 Business Insider Intelligence report predicted that by 2020, Internet of Things could be bigger than the combined size of the tablet, smartphone, wearable, PC and connected car markets. Enterprises are probably the most willing adopters of IoT creativities, overtaking both governments and consumers, routing to integrating more than 25 billion devices into verticals such as retail and manufacturing within the next four years hence increasing the scope of testing IoT devices.

The Internet of things (IoT), software testers and developers face new challenges that will expand their skills and have need of best and latest quality assurance software.

Upcoming years will be a rerun of what happened after mobile devices took off in the late 2000s. At that time, test engineers had to depend on factors such as available bandwidth, current network coverage and battery level which had been less tenacious with traditional desktops and laptops.

The IoT also brings many new thing in terms of testing requirements, counting major importance on unusual device types such as home appliances and also along with the minimal interfaces that have to fit and work on a watch, thermostat etc. With different set of products entering the IoT market, QA teams need to carefully chalk the best test management strategy in order to successfully meet the quality standards of these products. Let's have a look at what the future of IoT testing hold for software testing teams:

WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF TESTING WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY SCENARIOS

One of the most hyped Internet of Things (IoT) used case is home automation. Devices like Nest and Dropcam have already made influences on the consumers, while frameworks like Apple HomeKit are rolling out to weave together and try the different parts of the connected home.

Which other devices are also present? What's the layout of home? Dev/test teams can model many different types of sensors, device states and houses. Testers can get a good logic of what situations their services will face in the real world.

IMPORTANCE OF SECURITY IN THE IOT

Although it looks like the Internet of Things (IoT) have a vast upside for today's businesses, its possible downsides are worth nothing. In actual, security breaks practically always come up in conversations about what could possibly go wrong with a system as vast and diverse as the Internet of Things (IoT). At the connectivity level you will see many protocols being used for communication - bluetooth, wifi, 3G, CDMA, etc.  The transport layer poses one set of security issues in terms of encryption, access controls, authentication etc.

A 2014 study from HP expected that 70% of IoT devices were exposed to attacks, the difficulty of resolving everything in the IoT only complexes this issue. The components of the IoT are not as uniform as smartphones and PCs.QA teams must examine a full range of possible vulnerabilities in IoT services and products. Depending on the item in question, this carefulness could take the form of applying strict password rules, protecting the boundary from unauthorized access and confirming the use of encryption where appropriate. The HP report found that insecure Web interfaces and transport encryption were among the top issues with the IoT.

TESTING FOR A WIDE RANGE OF INTERFACESWith devices like Nest and Dropcam, software testing is reasonably straightforward since the hardware is well known in advance. Other services such as cross platform cloud based software create more complex scenarios for quality assurance teams, since the client device could be anything.

Something alike already exists with video streaming sites such as Youtube, Netflix etc. which can be accessed on anything from an HD LED TV to a handheld gaming console.In these cases, it may be useful to make a small set of requirements that can be tweaked and ported depending on the device. Usage analytics can also give vision into what devices merit the Most energy and time. Along the way, knowledge of the significant APIs and updates will be essential for performing valuable testing