Cost-benefit evaluation on parallel execution for improving test efficiency over cloud

Software testing usually accounts for a large proportion of software development time and cost. Thus, it is crucial to improve test efficiency and reduce test cost as much as possible. This paper describes a cloud-based approach to increase test efficiency by partitioning a large test job into multiple tasks and executing the tasks concurrently on different virtual machines (VMs). Several task partitioning and grouping strategies are presented for satisfying test deadline and other test requirement, such as shorter test execution time or less VM rental cost. To evaluate the proposed strategies, a case study was conducted. The results indicate that the proposed approach and strategies can be promising for improving test efficiency and cost-benefit.