Internet of Things
Internet of Things (IoT) is the connection of devices like home appliances, vehicles, and healthcare devices using an embedded component like a microchip or microcontroller.IoT devices collect and transfer the data to the connected device, and have the ability to control those devices.
IoT Testing
IoT Testing is a type of testing to check an IoT enabled device, along with its performance, functionality, security, connectivity, and integrity.
The Types of Technology Used in IoT
RF-ID: Radio Frequency Identification technology is used in barcode scanners. Bluetooth: Bluetooth is mostly used in a wearable watch, where a short range of communication is needed. WiFi: Wireless Fidelity is used when we use Local Area Network(LAN) Connections for communicating data. Z-Wave: Z-Wave is a low power RF technology, mostly used in home automation applications.Now that we have a clear idea about IoT, we can go forward with how testing contributes to IoT.
How IoT Contributes to the E-Commerce Industry?
Its trending technology is used in the E-Commerce industry, which helps in improving retail business, and has also become essential in the highly competitive eCommerce world in recent days. So how is IoT used in the retail industry? If we need to check the inventory of the products from different warehouses, IoT is the best technology to fulfill this requirement. Here’s another example, if a product such as a washing machine has some issues after a purchase, it automatically sends the information to the customer service team, so that they can provide any maintenance services needed. Hence, we can know the problem before a customer complains.Now, we have a small idea about how IoT contributes to the E-Commerce industry. Next, we shall see how it works.
How it Works
As we discussed above, IoT enabled devices communicate using different technologies. Here, we will talk about IoT with RF-ID Technology. The RF-ID system consists of two components, the RF-ID Tag and RF-ID reader. The RF reader sends radio waves to the object/receiver attached by the RF-ID Tag, and then the receiver sends their feedback to the RF-ID reader. This is how RF-ID works in IoT. This is one of the technologies that’s used in IoT.IoT enabled devices send information, like application failure to the LAN, and passes through the Gateway and Firewall to the Cloud, where the customer support/Admin receives it. The customer service person/Admin will get to know about the exact issues in the product and will be able to send an alert message to the customer about the failure and provide the customer service that’s needed. Now, we will discuss about each component in detail.
Device
Whether be it a mobile phone, washing machine, or anything, it should be an IoT enabled device. Most of the time, the sensors to detect hardware failure get built into the device. And, the device should have an internet facility like LAN, MAN, WAN.
Microcontroller
The Microcontroller device is a component used to perform the specific task in an embedded application, which has an inbuilt memory, I/O peripherals, and processor.
Sensors
It’s an electronic component that detects inputs like light, frequency, moisture, temperature, and much more from the physical device.
LAN
Local Area Network is a group of computers that share a common communication line within a limited area such as a school or office.
Gateway
A Gateway acts as a junction or node, where the data flows from one network to another.
Firewall
The Firewall is a network security system which controls the incoming and outgoing network traffic used in both hardware and software. And here, we can restrict the unwanted data from being transferred to the other networks. The Firewall restricts the network traffic based on the predefined rules.
Cloud
The Cloud is nothing but a server we can use for rent. It provides three services such as platform as a service, application as a service, and infrastructure as a service. Here, we can store and post our data. It can get stored in three ways, which are Private, Public and Hybrid (a combination of private and public).
Customer Support
The admin controls the customer support.
Types of Testing Used in IoT Testing
- Usability Testing
- Compatibility Testing
- Data Integrity Testing
- Security Testing
- Reliability Testing
Types of IoT Testing Tools
- Wireshark
- Shodan
- Tcpdump
- Thingful
- SOASTA CloudTest.
SOASTA CloudTest and Shodan are the most effective testing tools used in IoT applications.Now, let’s discuss about Shodan and SOASTA CloudTest.
Shodan
SHODAN (Sentient Hyper-Optimized Data Access Network) is a search engine which is used to collect information about internet connected devices and is often known to be as a search engine for IoT. Shodan is used to discover the devices that are connected to the Internet, where they are located, and as to who is using them.
SOASTA CloudTest:
SOASTA is used for performance, functional, and user interface testing, and it also provides the services for cloud testing.
Types of IoT performance testing tools:
MQTT is the protocol that we generally use in IoT performance testing. It was developed by IBM in 1999.
MQTT:
Message Queuing Telemetry Transport protocol acts as a broker/server between the publisher and subscriber. The publisher generally sends the information, while the subscriber receives the information.In IoT application, MQTT is used to communicate the information to the end to end machine. Here, the sensor acts like a publisher and the cloud system acts as a subscriber.The tools used in IoT performance testing are as follows. 1.Iotify.io 2.Mosquitto 3.Malaria 4.CopperWe hope that this has provided some inputs about IoT in the E-commerce industry.
Few examples of IoT
- Wearable fitness watch
- Infrastructure and development.
- Smart home and smart city
