All You Need To Know For Selenium Testing On The Cloud | LambdaTest

All You Need To Know For Selenium Testing On The Cloud

Building large-scale web applications take a monumental effort. Testing the quality of these applications requires a whole other level of dedication. From a developer’s vantage point, the focus is on improving the feature set, speeding up the overall performance, and building a scalable product. As far as QA is concerned, a lot of focus is on usability testing and compatibility testing while testing a website or web application.

If you are building a consumer-facing website or web application, your product is likely to be accessed by users from across the globe. Your product must be tested on various combinations of web browsers, devices, and platforms (operating systems) to ensure top-notch performance. Hence, browser compatibility testing becomes even more critical. No one wants to lose potential customers because of unpleasant user experience on select few browsers, devices, or platforms.

The most economical & productive way to get this done is by implementing cloud-based automated browser testing or Selenium testing to be more precise. Wondering why it is the most efficient way? Allow me to dive deep into the importance of cross browser testing in Selenium. If you are preparing for an interview you can learn more through Selenium interview questions.

Now execute test scripts faster than any other automation testing grid on LambdaTest’s automated cloud test platform.

TABLE OF CONTENT

• Limitations Of Local Testing
• Selenium: A Popular Alternative
• Getting Started With Selenium Testing On The Cloud
• Selenium Testing On The Cloud In Action

Limitations Of Local Testing

Responsive testing of a locally hosted website is the crux of successful online business. Developers prefer to test a website or web application locally before it goes live. It ensures that the website’s content is rendered according to the device used to access it. But the plethora of devices, viewports, or operating systems availed by users poses a significant challenge for coherent responsiveness.

It would require a significant investment to set up a local infrastructure on which testing can be performed. As you’ll need powerful machines with different combinations of operating systems and versions of web browsers (e.g., Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.) installed on them. There is a fairly slim chance that you can cover all the corner test-cases with automation testing on local machines. Thus, test coverage would likely take a huge hit.

On the other hand, the Selenium test framework provides a means to perform widespread automated browser testing. Rather than investing in non-scalable test infrastructure, Selenium testing tool on the cloud could be leveraged for long-term gains.

Selenium: A Popular Alternative

Selenium is a very popular test framework using which you can create scalable test cases for automated browser testing or cross browser testing. It is an open-source framework that automates a browser to behave like a user is expected to interact with your website. You can write test scripts in many languages, including but not limited to Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, C#, etc.

There are innumerable factors that can be attributed to the popularity of the Selenium framework; the major ones are mentioned below:

• Selenium is open-source, and its usage does not involve any overhead costs.
• Popular programming languages like C#, Python, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, etc. can be used seamlessly with the Selenium framework.
• Selenium has a vast support community to help you out of a sticky situation. This community is growing every single day.
• WebDrivers for popular web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, etc. can be downloaded to automate GUI tests.
• Popular frameworks like Hypothesis, Robot Framework, etc. (for Python) can perform testing using a wide range of input values.

Merits Of Selenium Testing On The Cloud

Automated browser testing on local infrastructure is neither economical nor scalable. Even if you are willing to invest heavily in the overall infrastructure, you will not achieve the same quality of throughput, test performance, parallelism, test coverage, etc. that you are likely to accomplish with cross browser testing in Selenium.

By Sathwik Prabhu

Below are some of the most important benefits of switching to Selenium testing on the cloud:

• Achieve better browser coverage, platform coverage, and test coverage by executing automation tests on cloud-based cross browser testing platforms.
• Scalable and cost-effective as you pay for the resources that you use. It works on a SAAS (Software as a service) model.
• Execute automation tests at a faster pace by leveraging the power of parallel testing.
• Use browser capabilities to test on new as well as outdated/old web browsers, operating systems, and devices.
• Use popular programming languages like C#, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, Python, etc. along with the Selenium test framework, i.e. remote Selenium WebDriver for scalable development test cases/test suites.
• Keep track of the testing process’s evolution and take advantage of bug-tracking, communication, and project management tools for tracking & timely communication with other team members.
• Leverage the advantage of CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery) tools like Jenkins, TeamCity, Travis, Bamboo, etc. to achieve automation of the build, package, and testing processes.

Getting Started With Selenium Testing On The Cloud

Now that you have decided to use Selenium testing on the cloud for automated browser testing, the next task is to choose a cross-browser testing platform. You need a reliable, scalable platform; one that supports automated browser testing with popular test frameworks like Selenium.

LambdaTest is a cloud-based cross browser testing platform on which you can perform the following tasks:

• Perform Automated & Live Interactive Cross Browser Testing in Selenium for 3000+ real browsers and operating systems online.
• Port existing test implementation to the LambdaTest platform with minimal code changes.
• Achieve faster test results by taking advantage of concurrent sessions/parallel execution.
• Keep track of your automation tests and analyze the failed ones by looking at the debug logs (for the corresponding tests) available on the LambdaTest server.
• Use Remote Selenium WebDriver implementation and generate cross browser capabilities for powerful programming languages like C#, Python, Ruby on Rails, etc.
• Analyze the performance of the tests with detailed reporting mechanisms.

Now execute test scripts faster than any other automation testing grid on LambdaTest’s automated cloud test platform.

For Selenium testing on the cloud using LambdaTest, you should perform the following steps:

Step 1: Account Creation

First, you need to get yourself registered on LambdaTest. You can visit the registration page for creating a new account. Once you are registered, keep the user-name & access token handy since that combination is required for logging on to the LambdaTest dashboard.

Step 2: Choose Plan

Depending on the testing requirements, you should choose the appropriate pricing plan. Lite, Live, Web & Mobile Browser Automation, Web Automation are the available plans on LambdaTest. You can upgrade/downgrade the plan anytime, and the changes will be reflected in the next billing cycle. For detailed information on these plans, you can check out the pricing page.

Step 3: Browser Capabilities Generator

Since we would be performing Selenium testing on the cloud, you will need to generate desired capabilities, i.e. a set of properties used for the configuration of Selenium tests on the Selenium grid cloud. You need to select the programming language, specify the OS, browser, resolution, and browser version that you would use for Selenium testing while generating browser capabilities.

Once you have logged in to the platform, generated capabilities using the capabilities generator, and executed a cross browser test, you need to go to the Automation tab to monitor the automation browser testing status. Each test will have a Test ID and Build ID associated with it; the format is https://automation.lambdatest.com/logs/?testID= &build= .

RUN YOUR TESTING SCRIPT ON SELENIUM GRID

3000+ Browsers AND OS

Selenium Testing On The Cloud In Action

Now that you are all set with a LambdaTest account, it is time to execute cross browser testing in Selenium. For now, let us look into a Python example that demonstrates Selenium testing on the cloud using remote Selenium Grid on LambdaTest.

Serial Testing

Serial testing is a practice of executing tests serially, i.e. tests are executed one after another. Once the first test is completed, the next test will be executed. The downside of using serial testing is that it increases the test execution time since the Selenium testing framework and cloud infrastructure capabilities are not used to the fullest.

Problem Statement: Below is the breakdown of the things that we plan to achieve with this test:

1. Open DuckDuckGo in the Firefox browser.
2. Locate the Search Box.
3. Enter a search query, i.e. LambdaTest.
4. Execute the search operation.
5. Free up the resources.

Implementation:

A combination of the user-name and the access-token is used for logging on to the platform.

How to Learn Selenium – A Complete Roadmap

Web Development is indeed one of the most high-paying jobs and is also in great demand. But building a website isn’t just enough, developers also have a team of testers who find bugs and try to rectify them. Bugs are obvious and hence, testing the software is needed. When it comes to testing, Selenium is one of the best tools to help developers with automation testing. Thus, the demand for Selenium testers is high and will also increase in the near future.

You’ll be surprised to know that the average salary of a Selenium tester is 7 LPA and it also ranges from 4 LPA to 15 LPA as per the experience. In this article, you’ll get to know everything that requires you to become a Selenium tester. But before that, let’s understand What is Selenium?

Selenium is an open-source tool and a suite of tools that can automate actions on web browsers. Each tool is to support specific automation. It supports scripting in 10 different programming languages like Ruby, Java, NodesJS, Python, PHP, and C#. The most important tools of selenium are Selenium IDE, Selenium WebDriver, and Selenium Grid.

Advantages of Using Selenium

Selenium is an open source. There is no licensing cost involved and it can be downloaded for free. It is becoming one of the most preferred web testing frameworks and also

• No Initial Investment.
• No need for Trained Programmers.
• Test Driver Development, Continuous Integration (CI), & Continuous Testing (CT)

Who is a Selenium Tester?

The work of a Selenium Tester depends on the role, company to another, from one project to another, and even also varies according to a year of experience. There are some standard responsibilities of a Selenium Tester.

• Understand the requirements and functionality of the client/user.
• Knowledge of Regression and Functional Testing.
• Knowledge of the Selenium suite of tools like Selenium IDE, Selenium Grid, and Selenium WebDriver.
• Test Automation Framework.
• Create Test cases and able to execute them.
• To fix errors, resolve queries if any also debug the test cases.

If you want or thinking of pursuing a career in the web testing field, then there are various Selenium career opportunities. Selenium helps developers with automating testing.

There are many Career Opportunities as a Selenium Developer:

You must have lots of questions pop up How to start? Where to start? What do we need to learn before beginning Selenium? In this article, we will discuss all these things in detail.

Roadmap to Learn Selenium

Learning Selenium is not that much difficult, it requires a good command is any of the programming languages and practice properly. So, To understand or before starting to learn Selenium you should have some good commands on any programming language, HTML, Unit testing, TestNg, and Framework to learn Selenium for Automation testing. Let’s discuss all these in more detail.

Step 1: Learn Any Programming Language – you should know basic knowledge about any programming language. Taking Java as an example. First, you should have a proper installation and setting up Eclipse for practice.

The first thing you need to learn is Core Java . So, you need to learn the following major topics:

Some Advance Java concepts of Java need to cover to be aware of all these concepts along with basic concepts

• Collection Framework– A framework is a set of classes and interfaces which provide a ready-made architecture. To implement a new feature or a class, there is no need to define a framework.
• Local Date and Time– LocalDateTime in Java is used for displaying the local date and time on the output screen.
• Lambda ExpressionsandStream– Java 8 introduced a host of new features, including lambda functions and streams.
• JDBC (Java Database Connectivity)– Java Database Connectivity is a Java API to connect and execute the query with the database

Step 2: IDE and Build Tools – Once you cover all the core and advanced java and start to practice therefore you must know the following IDE’s

Now all your java code is built. So, for building your Java project you must be aware of Maven (build tool).

Step 3: Learn DataBase Management System – Knowledge of Database Management System (DBMS) is good to go. Listed down all the important topics which need to cover before starting with Selenium

Step 4: Learn Fundamentals of HTML – You should have basic knowledge and some practice, as while working with selenium You would need to find out locators of web elements like radio, links, text boxes, checkboxes, etc.

Step 5: Know about Testing Basics and Testing Management – Knowledge about basic concepts of software testing that are to be understood by anyone who is going to work on a software testing project. List down some concepts

• The need for Software Testing
• Basics Concepts and Terminologies
• How Software Testing is Done
• Requirement Analysis Phase
• Test Planning and Design Phase
• Test Execution Phase
• Test Closure Phase

Step 6: Developing Persistence Layer of Enterprise Application using Hibernate – Hibernate Framework is a very popular persistence layer framework for developing Java enterprise applications.

Hibernate is a Java-based, open-source, Object Relational Mapping (ORM) framework.

• About Persistence Layer
• Object Rational Mapping
• Performing Hibernate CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete)
• Primary Key Generation Strategies
• Entity Mapping
• Criteria of API (Application Program Interface)

Step 7: Start with Selenium – Selenium is a suite of tools that can automate actions on web browsers. Each tool is developed to support a specific kind of automation approach. For more information do read Selenium Basics – Components, Features, Uses, and Limitations

There important tools that form the core of the Selenium ecosystem are:

• Have no prior knowledge of programming.
• Automated test scripts have to be created in the quickest possible way.

• Skilled programmers, who can handle code using object-oriented APIs.
• Test automation involves complex functionalities like UIs built using HTML5, etc.
• Developing advanced automation frameworks which need features.

• Multiple tests can run in parallel on multiple machines to reduce overall execution time.
• Tests need to be distributed across multiple machines to check for application compatibility

Step 8: Selenium Basics – Start with learning Locators and WebDrivers .

There are many different ways to find web elements like ID, Name, Class Name, Link text, Partial Link text, CSS, and XPath.

You have to learn commands on WebDrivers and their real-time knowledge. Some commonly used WebDriver Like Google Chrome Driver, Internet Explorer Driver, Opera Driver, Safari Driver, and HTML Unit Driver

You can first target the simple things to learn Selenium Basics:

Step 9: Testing – Testing is the process of verifying and validating the functionality of an application to make sure that it works as per the requirements and does not have a bug/error. It is the responsibility of the developer to test the module or method that he/she has developed before the code is integrated with others’ code.

The most commonly used unit testing frameworks are JUnit and TestNG .

Step 10: Selenium Advance – Now move to learn advanced concepts to be better commanding in Selenium Framework. Learn the following components which will help you in creating a maintainable framework/script in Selenium.

i) Work with TestNG Framework – TestNG (Test Next Generation) is an open-source automated testing framework. It is similar to JUnit, but it is not a JUnit extension.

ii) Enhance Test Scripts –

• XPath axes – An XPath expression is an alphanumeric pattern that returns a node or a set of nodes in the given XML/HTML document.
• SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) – SSL is a standard security protocol that is used to establish a secured connection between the server and the client end.
• JDBC (Java DataBase Connectivity)

iii) Log Reports using Log 4j – Apache Log 4j is a Java-based logging utility that is used for logging execution information.

iv) Build Automation using Maven – Working with Maven is to build the project more automated and Independent.

v) Build triggers using Jenkins – Jenkins is an open-source continuous integration tool used on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS environments.

vi) Automation Framework – An automation framework is a combination of various guidelines, coding standards , project hierarchies , modularity , reporting mechanism , test data injections, etc. to pillar automation testing.

• Some concepts in the Automation Framework
• Create Test Cases
• Create and Execute Test Batches
• Tracking and Reporting Errors/Defects
• Regression Testing

vii) Cross-browser testing using Selenium Grid – Selenium grid is part of the selenium suite which distributes the test across multiple physical or virtual machines for the test scripts can be executed in parallel (Simultaneously). It helps us in covering the test process across browsers and different platforms.

Step 11: Practice – You should keep practicing all the above topics to understand the real-time implementation of selenium.

Some Selenium Practice Exercise

• Automate Google Search with Selenium.
• Login to Email using username and password automatically.
• Send an Email Automatically using Selenium.
• Automate Demo Web Table with Selenium.

Conclusion

In order to become a Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET). Selenium is the most necessary. Begin your journey in this field, you will keep growing. While working with Selenium Automation, upskill and keep yourself learning every day. Does not need much effort into learning new automation tools (Selenium), once you worked for 2-3 years in selenium.

https://www.lambdatest.com/blog/cloud-selenium-testing/

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/blogs/how-to-learn-selenium-a-complete-roadmap/