If you’re reading this article, you probably know the challenge of testing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environment. VDI has a lot of advantages. It’s secure, as you don’t have any data on your laptop. It’s easier and with less effort to maintain. You don’t need to deploy on notebooks; you deploy centrally.
The trend is going toward centralized solutions instead of local installations like VDI, Azure Virtual Desktop, or containers in development.
But for software testing, it might be a nightmare.
Why software testing is a challenge in secured VDI environments
It seems impossible to test virtual desktop infrastructure automated, as the application doesn’t run on your computer, and you can’t install any software on the target system.
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As VDI environments are mostly super secure, it’s even harder to set up your automated software testing as the VDIs are created on the fly and are based on a company-wide disk image that doesn’t allow you to include anything required for testing.
Let’s say we are in a VDI environment of a bank; see the graphic above. You connect to the bank’s system (VDI) via a so-called jump host, a dedicated laptop, or pc. From there, you access the first VDI to access the VDI that is getting you the system under test. So your testing has to pass three different layers.
As you only get an image and not access to the software itself, it’s not possible to test the software with classic frameworks like Appium, Selenium, Ranorex, Leapwork, mabl, or anything else where you need to install an agent and access to the code of the software under test.
How you can test any software despite the VDI challenges
The only way to test in a VDI environment is with an agentless test automation system, where you don’t need to install anything on the target system.
Let’s change the perspective. Forget about all the technical parts of software testing.
As a user, you can interact with any software in the VDI environment.
And that’s how you test in VDI environments: with a visual, technology-agnostic framework where the test system emulates the user – like TestResults.io.
This way, you can test automated anything a user may use – even software in complex secure VDI environments.
To have a valid testing solution is vivid as VDI environments are used in banks, insurance, government, military, and enterprises—fields, where you can not afford not to have an automated solution for testing software.
And that’s how an on-prem minimal architecture of a test automation setup could look like:
Learn more about user-like technology agnostic test automation with TestResults.io, and get a free account now (PS: it’s free forever).
