Distributed testing of a software platform

1. A method comprising:

sending an update notification from a notification server of a software provider to a plurality of independent software vendors (ISVs) each associated with at least one platform targeting application (PTA) to execute on a software platform of the software provider, the update notification to indicate occurrence of an update to the software platform and to trigger execution of regression testing by the plurality of ISVs of the at least one PTA;

receiving a result of the regression testing from at least some of the ISVs;

updating, via a test server of the software provider, a first count for each of the ISVs providing a result indication of successful regression testing of the at least one PTA with regard to the update to the software platform and updating a second count for each of the ISVs providing a result indication of unsuccessful regression testing of the at least one PTA with regard to the update to the software platform; and

committing the update to the software platform if the first count exceeds a first threshold.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising enabling distributed regression testing of the update to the software platform to be performed via the update notification.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising storing failure report information from the distributed regression testing associated with at least one PTA in a failure log.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising not committing the update to the software platform if the first count does not exceed the first threshold.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising sending the update notification to a first ISV of a first PTA responsive to a receipt of a registration message from the first ISV for the first PTA.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising inserting an entry in a notification log responsive to the registration message.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising performing vendor-specific regression testing of the updated software platform prior to sending the update notification.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising tentatively committing the update to the software platform if the updated software platform passes the vendor-specific regression testing.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the software platform comprises a platform application programming interface (API).

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the software platform comprises a cloud computing platform, the plurality of ISVs are unaffiliated software providers for the cloud computing platform, and code of the regression testing of each of the plurality of ISVs remains private to the corresponding ISV and only non-identifying information is provided to the software provider.

11. A system comprising:

a platform server including a software platform on which a plurality of platform targeting applications (PTAs) of a plurality of independent software vendors (ISVs) execute;

an update server coupled to the platform server to provide an update to the software platform;

a notification server to send an update notification to inform the plurality of ISVs of an update to the software platform; and

a test server to receive a result of regression testing performed on at least some of the plurality of PTAs executing on the updated software platform from at least some of the ISVs and to commit the update to the software platform based on at least some of the ISV results.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the test server includes a first logic to maintain a first count of a number of the PTAs that pass regression testing on the updated software platform and a second count of a number of the PTAs that fail regression testing on the updated software platform.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the test server includes an update commitment logic to commit the software platform update based on at least the first count.

14. The system of claim 11 , wherein the test server includes a failure analysis logic to analyze the regression test result for at least one of the ISVs to determine a location within the updated software platform at which a corresponding PTA failed the regression testing.

15. The system of claim 11 , further comprising a storage area network (SAN) coupled to the test server and including a notification database to store a list of ISVs to be notified responsive to the update to the software platform and a report queue to store test results received from at least some of the ISVs.

16. An article comprising a machine-accessible storage medium including instructions that when executed cause a system to:

send an update notification to a plurality of independent software vendors (ISVs) each associated with at least one platform targeting application (PTA) to execute on a cloud computing platform of a data center, the update notification to indicate occurrence of an update to the cloud computing platform and to trigger execution of regression testing by the plurality of ISVs of the at least one PTA;

receive a result of the regression testing from at least some of the ISVs; and

commit the update to the cloud computing platform if a plurality of first tier PTAs of the ISVs passes regression testing of the corresponding first tier PTA executing on the updated cloud computing platform.

17. The article of claim 16 , further comprising instructions that when executed enable the system to commit the update to the cloud computing platform if a count of second tier PTAs of the ISVs passing the regression testing exceeds a first threshold.

18. The article of claim 17 , further comprising instructions that when executed enable the system to commit the update to the cloud computing platform if a count of third tier PTAs of the ISVs passing the regression testing exceeds a second threshold, and otherwise to not commit the cloud computing platform.

19. The article of claim 17 , wherein the first tier PTAs have a higher criticality than the second tier PTAs.

20. The article of claim 16 , further comprising instructions that when executed enable the system to not commit the update to the cloud computing platform if any of the first tier PTAs do not pass the regression testing.