How do you test and validate the performance and functionality of your cloud environment after migration?

1 Define your testing scope and objectives

Before you start testing your cloud environment, you need to define your testing scope and objectives. What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) and service level agreements (SLAs) that you want to measure and achieve? What are the critical functionalities and features that you want to verify and validate? What are the potential risks and issues that you want to identify and resolve? How will you document and report your testing results and findings? Having a clear and comprehensive testing plan will help you focus on the most important aspects of your cloud environment and avoid wasting time and resources on unnecessary or redundant tests.

2 Choose the right testing tools and methods

Depending on your testing scope and objectives, you may need to utilize various testing tools and methods to test and validate your cloud environment. Load testing, for example, can help you measure the scalability, reliability, and performance of your cloud environment under stress. Functional testing can ensure that your cloud environment meets your standards and delivers the intended value. Security testing can assess the security posture and compliance of your cloud environment against various threats and vulnerabilities. And integration testing can check the compatibility and interoperability of your cloud environment with other systems or applications. All of this together can help you protect your data, applications, and infrastructure from unauthorized access or breaches.

3 Compare your baseline and target metrics

Testing and validating the performance and functionality of your cloud environment can be done by comparing baseline and target metrics. Baseline metrics are measurements of your on-premises or legacy systems before migration, while target metrics are measurements of your cloud environment after migration. By comparing the two, you can evaluate the impact and outcome of your cloud migration and determine if you have achieved desired results and improvements. Some metrics to look at include availability, performance, and cost. Availability measures uptime and downtime of your systems, applications, or services. Performance measures speed and responsiveness. Cost measures total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI). You want to ensure that your cloud environment has a high availability, high performance, and low cost for optimal results.

4 Conduct user acceptance testing (UAT)

Conducting user acceptance testing (UAT) is another way to test and validate the performance and functionality of your cloud environment. UAT is the final stage of testing where you invite end users or stakeholders to interact with your cloud environment in a real or simulated environment and provide feedback on their experience and satisfaction. This can help ensure that your cloud environment meets the expectations and needs of your end users or stakeholders and delivers the intended benefits and outcomes for your business. To complete UAT, you must define criteria and scenarios that align with your business goals, select UAT participants and methods, and collect and analyze feedback and data. The participants should represent a diverse sample of your target audience, while the feedback should include qualitative and quantitative data such as ratings, comments, surveys, interviews, observations, or analytics.

5 Implement continuous testing and monitoring

The last step to test and validate the performance and functionality of your cloud environment is to implement continuous testing and monitoring. This involves regularly checking and verifying your cloud environment for any changes, updates, or issues that may affect its performance or functionality. Doing so can help you ensure that your cloud environment remains stable, secure, and efficient over time and can adapt to any emerging needs or demands. Furthermore, continuous testing and monitoring can offer several benefits such as detecting errors before they affect your users or business, improving and optimizing your cloud environment based on data-driven insights and feedback, as well as enhancing and innovating your cloud environment with new opportunities or trends.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?