What is IoT?

Connecting things/End devices to the internet. Is this what IoT exactly means?? A big NO. Instead of just controlling your devices, it’s about making your things, machines, gadgets create and consume data the way we consume, making them connect and talk to each other saving the resources. It is one of the booming technology of this era. The area of its interest is huge as brings a vast variety of devices such as home appliances, remote sensors, healthcare devices, etc. on a single desk. The prediction of more than 21 billion devices to be connected by 2025 makes IoT become the biggest testing opportunity ever. Therefore, IoT testing Frameworks at different levels of an IoT ecosystem are described here.

Why IoT testing?

• IoT is the integration of the Hardware domain with the software domain with people of one domain having limited knowledge of the other hence, it becomes very crucial for the quality testing expert team to design effective test strategies to meet the quality of this massive amount of devices.
• IoT devices with wireless connectivity and battery capacity are subject to related regulations so as to ensure consumer safety.

Benefits of IoT Testing

• Improves User Experience and Quality: IoT Testing ensures that the end-users get best-in-class user experience across multiple channels (device, web, mobile).
• Future-proof the business: IoT Testing provides an integrated approach to validate the practical as well as non-functional requirements of the IoT solutions. It also future-proofs the business by ensuring interoperability, security and performance testing.
• Accelerated Delivery: IoT testing ensures faster time-to-market by leveraging early automation.
• The Performance is practical and realistic: No physical interaction as well as manual operation improve efficiency.

Challenges to IoT Testing

1. Testers with limited Domain knowledge.
2. Limited User interface/Console.
3. A Complex mix of modern IT and Web services with Embedded Systems.
4. Data privacy and Security.
5. Multiple Applications and distance environment deployment.
6. Performance requirements for high availability, quality, rapid response, as well as local processing.
7. Support for volume, variety and accuracy of data.
8. Several network Protocols like HTPP, MQTT, CoAP, XMPP, etc.
9. A Large number of sensor interactions, gateways, devices, hubs.

Types of Testing in IoT System

1. Connectivity Testing

• The success of an IoT system depends upon how well the device and the hub are connected because even if the connection is lost for a single second this can cause data inaccuracy and instability to the system.
• Seamless connectivity in addition to data restoration are two key features of connectivity testing.
• For example to verify connectivity:
  • Verify that all the gadgets involved in IoT testing are registered to the network.
  • Sending regular ping messages to make sure that the persists.
  • If the connection is lost the device should store the data in a database that should synchronize with the Hub as soon as the connection is restored(Device shadow in AWS).

2. Compatibility Testing

• As a result of numerous device versions, protocol, mobile devices and OS versions, Compatibility testing becomes the major concern in the application layer and network layer of IoT.
• The software should support numerous devices and know which nodes should be preferred while developing connections.
• Validates compatibility for a combination of devices, protocols and OS.
• Device to Device communication protocols should be compatible.
• Example test:
  • If a user needs to make payments using IoT software then It should be capable of transections through numerous banks.

3. Performance Testing

• Testing the Performance of IoT devices is one of the crucial aspects because ensures the speed of communication and internal capabilities of edge computing.
• It also tests for the amount of data a connected device can send.
• Re-initiation of the data transfer if the data sent exceeds the predefined amount.
• Example test:
  • Verifying response time against defined time as well as testing if the data sent is accurate or not.

4. Security Testing

• Securing data is the biggest challenge of an IoT system because it can damage the whole reliability of the system irrespective of the system’s functional and non-functional elements are doing well.
• Data protection, device identity authentication, encryption/decryption as well as securing the connected devices are the key aspects of security testing.
• Example test:
  • Using a strong password for authentication.
  • Discard the unauthorized connections indeed.

5. User Application Testing

• It refers to a Person’s overall experience using an IoT product or Service.
• Familiarity, Feedback, Attractive, and also consistent are some verifying features.
• Example test:
  • How quickly a user can place a transaction.
  • If a wearable is lost the User should still have the provision to block the device.

Tools for IoT Testing

• TCPDump
• Shodan for hub connectivity
• MQTTSpy
• Wireshark