Management of mobile device cloud credentials

You can find information about managing the credentials that are required to connect to mobile device clouds from HCL OneTest™ Server.

Contents

Mobile device clouds

Mobile device clouds are cloud computing services offered by cloud service providers who host real mobile devices in a cloud. You can purchase plans from the service providers to use the mobile devices in the cloud to test your mobile apps. The cloud service providers also offer different browsers in the cloud to test web applications.

To use the cloud services, you must subscribe to their services that suit your testing requirements.

Mobile device clouds and HCL OneTest™ Server

If you already use mobile device clouds to test your mobile apps, testers in your organization must be required to set up the connection to the mobile device clouds individually. They use the same credentials that you subscribed to as an organization. This can be a potential risk of exposure of your subscription details and without proper monitoring can lead to misuse of the credentials.

You can use HCL OneTest™ Server to connect to mobile device clouds. You must first configure a cloud credential by using the details of your cloud subscription account.

You can then add testers from your organization as authorized users who can use the credential to connect to mobile device clouds. Such members need not enter the subscription details to connect to the cloud. Only the authorized users of the credential can run their tests on the devices that are connected to the mobile device cloud. With this mechanism, you can prevent the exposure of the credentials of your subscription to testers and also prevent testers from creating separate connections to the same mobile device cloud.

Mobile device clouds that are supported

HCL OneTest™ Server supports connections to the following mobile device clouds:
  • BitBar Cloud
  • BrowserStack Cloud
  • pCloudy Cloud
  • Perfecto Mobile Cloud

Details required of mobile device clouds

You must ensure that you have the details and valid credentials of your subscription to the mobile device cloud that you want to connect and use. See the following table for the details required for the different mobile device clouds:
Attribute Description Mobile device cloud
BitBar Cloud BrowserStack Cloud pCloudy Cloud Perfecto Mobile Cloud
Host The hostname of the mobile device cloud instance. Required Required Required Required
API key The API key of your cloud account to authenticate the connection. Required Required Required Not applicable
Security token The token used to authenticate the connection. Not applicable Not applicable Not applicable Required
Project The project name to use on the mobile device cloud. Required Required Not applicable Not applicable
Username The username of your cloud account. Not applicable Required Required Not applicable

Prerequisites for using mobile devices on mobile device clouds

When you want to use the available mobile devices that are connected to a mobile device cloud, you must ensure that you have completed certain tasks. Refer to the following table for details of the tasks that must be completed before tests can be run on the mobile devices connected to mobile device clouds:
Device cloud Testing on Android OS Testing on iOS
BitBar Cloud
  • Uploaded the .apk file of the Android application that you want to test.
  • Installed the Android application that you want to test on the Android device.
  • Installed the .ipa or .app file of the iOS application that you want to test.
  • Installed the iOS application that you want to test on the iOS device.
BrowserStack Cloud
Perfecto Mobile Cloud
pCloudy Cloud
  • Uploaded the .apk file of the Android application that you want to test.
  • Installed the Android application that you want to test on the Android device.
  • Verified that the device you want to test is available and in the Released state on the pCloudy Cloud.
  • Uploaded the .ipa file of the iOS application that you want to test.
  • Installed the iOS application that you want to test on the iOS device.
  • Verified that the device you want to test is available and in the Released state on the pCloudy Cloud.

Overview of tasks to manage mobile device clouds

You as a Team Space Owner can perform the following tasks:
  • Configure the connection to mobile device clouds. You must create a cloud credential in the team space that represents a connection to a mobile device cloud. You must use the details of your mobile device cloud subscription account to configure the cloud credential to the mobile device cloud. See Adding cloud credentials of mobile device clouds.
  • Add your team space members to access the mobile device cloud. The added members become the authorized users of the cloud credential, and then can connect to the mobile device cloud from HCL OneTest™ Server. See Adding authorized users to a cloud credential.
  • View the details of the cloud credential that you added to the team space. See Viewing details of cloud credentials.
  • Remove the authorized users of the cloud credential, when you want to reduce the number of users accessing the mobile device cloud. See Removing authorized users from a cloud credential.
  • Edit an existing cloud credential that you configured to modify the name of the credential, project, or username of your cloud subscription account. See Editing details of cloud credentials.
  • Delete an existing cloud credential that you configured, from the team space. You might want to delete the credential when your cloud subscription to the mobile device cloud has expired and you no longer need the connection. See Deleting an existing cloud credential.
  • Export details of all existing cloud credentials that are configured in your team space, when you might want to use the details elsewhere. You can export details such as the name of the credentials, the credential type, and the email ID of authorized users of the credentials. See Viewing details of cloud credentials.
You as a Project Owner or Tester can perform the following tasks on cloud credentials or the mobile device clouds: