The document outlines a presentation on using a mobile grid for testing applications, focusing on efficient test execution through parallelization and device management. It covers methods for capturing test data, utilizing cloud services, and generating reports, along with demonstrating setups for various configurations. Challenges such as device connectivity issues and performance optimizations are also addressed, with proposed solutions and alternatives to real devices.

1. Mobile Grid - Getting Started
DCAST Meetup - Washington, DC
February 10, 2016

2. The Mobile Grid
• Get test results as quickly as possible by parallelizing
your tests.
• Validate different os versions, manufacturers, locales &
screen sizes simultaneously.
• Capture critical metadata for reporting.
• Flexibility of accessing your devices locally via adb or
instruments.
• You don’t expose your app or sensitive data to the cloud.

3. What I’ll demo…
• Getting your connected devices programmatically.
• Launching Grid hub & Appium nodes programmatically.
• Capturing screenshots, hub log, appium log, video and logcat data for reporting.
• Running tests distributed.
• Running tests in parallel.
• Leveraging your test runs with cloud test services. e.g. Sauce Labs.
• Reduce your runtime costs by only executing selected scenarios.
• Generating the Allure report.
• Lets briefly look at the code…

4. Appium Server & Nodes Methods

5. ADB Methods (Video and Logcat)

6. Rake Task

7. Spec Helper

8. Spec Example

9. • Run the examples:
• Distributed: rake android[dist]
• https://www.dropbox.com/s/8md7ihp2i6pc5pw/distributed.mov?dl=0
• Parallel: rake android[parallel]
• https://www.dropbox.com/s/o7f6gb7chq51xya/parallel.mov?dl=0
• Distributed: rake android[dist,sauce] * run tests tagged :sauce in Sauce Labs.
• Generate the Allure report.
• allure generate report output/allure/*
• allure report open
• https://www.dropbox.com/s/a8g0erkabpa5zny/signup_failure.mov?dl=0
• Wunderlist Mobile Grid
• https://www.dropbox.com/s/y5xsmnxfldguzr0/grid-trimmed.mov?dl=0
• https://www.dropbox.com/s/675nonhixzq0ct7/emulators.mov?dl=0
Demo Time

10. Wunderlist Mobile Grid

11. • Mac Pro - 3.5 GHz 6-Core - 32 GB Ram.
• OSX Server with performance mode enabled.
• Two Anker 9 Port USB Hubs.
• Energenie programmable power strip. (Reboots hubs,
router, Mac)
• Blink(1) programmable usb light to display CI status.
• Jenkins - builds and runs smoke tests on every commit.
CI Machine Specs

14. That is great & all but reporting is key!

15. Challenges
• Adb disconnects.
• I solved this by programmatically rebooting USB hubs before every test run.
• WiFi disconnects.
• I solved this by toggling airplane mode on/off prior to every test run.
• Other Solutions:
• Reverse USB tethering. (requires rooting.)
• WiFi connection apps.
• Using multiple routers on different broadcasting channels.
• Spreading the devices apart.
• Alternatives to real devices:
• Android Studio emulators.
• Cannot video record. * I have a solution for this and will open source it.
• Emulators with VNC clients to record test sessions. (Facebook does this.)
• A big plus IMO is that you have access your apps local files (database) without rooting.
• Can use up a significant amount of memory depending on specs and the number running.
• Using Genymotion emulators. It’s the closest vm software to a real device.
• Has video recording but no API or CLI to start the recording. :/
• Using multiple Docker containers running emulator nodes. (Similar setup to the selenium web Docker containers)
• Some devices just behave erratically. (random reboots, cannot connect to adb, wonky text output, battery issues)

16. Thank You!
• email: justin.ison@gmail.com
• twitter: @isonic1
• https://github.com/isonic1/appium-mobile-grid