What is Test Lab Automation?

What is Lab as a Service (LaaS)?

LaaS is the practice of sharing test lab resources across different organizations that are sometimes located within the same campus and other times separated by thousands of miles. Historically, each organization that performed device or application testing owned and maintained their own test lab infrastructure including test tools, network switches, and systems under test. Even with only modest organic growth, this type of test lab can quickly lead to huge costs attributed to inefficient use of these resources within the lab. With faster growth, for example through acquisition, a holistic look at a company’s annual investment in test labs shows larger than expected expenses.

LaaS takes the opposite approach where test lab resources are managed centrally and are shared across organizations that require those resources. Since use of the equipment can be scheduled by multiple teams in different time zones, equipment that may have otherwise sat idle can now be utilized more efficiently. Although implementing LaaS requires initial investment in test lab automation infrastructure, the return on investment is significant. A LaaS environment:

• Allows remote access from multiple locations to test lab infrastructure
• Utilizes resources much more efficiently by reducing idle time
• Increases test cycle throughput by eliminating the need for manual topology configuration using patch panels
• Reduces OPEX overhead incurred by maintaining multiple independent labs (power, heat, maintenance…)
• Builds network topologies using Layer 1 technology to eliminate the need for manual patch panels and layer 2/3 network configuration
• Enables remote access to lab resources and working from home

Why is a Layer 1 Switch Better for Test Labs?

An efficient test bed has as little as possible between the test tools and the device or application being tested. A Layer 1 switch fits this requirement perfectly. Even a manual patch panel is more prone to failure than a Layer 1 switch due to wear and tear on cables that are constantly being switched manually and the potential this creates for dirty fiber connectors.

Imagine a scenario where a stress test is failing. The team debugging the problem determines that the test tool is occasionally seeing a timeout condition due to packets not being received from the server. With a Layer 1 switch connecting the test tool to the server, the team can rule out any packet loss caused by the switch. A layer 2 switch cannot be ruled out so easily since layer 2 routing does not guarantee delivery of packets and the problem could be caused by the switch itself or other test traffic running through the switch.