Saucelabs
What is SauceLabs?
Sauce Labs allows users to run tests in the cloud on more than 700 different browser platform, operating system and device combinations, providing a comprehensive test infrastructure for automated and manual testing of desktop and mobile applications using Selenium, Appium and JavaScript unit testing frameworks ( Wikipedia )
- It provides a cloud platform to execute automated tests against browsers and mobile device.
- This cloud can only be used if you are using Selenium or Appium/Selenium or Espresso as your tool for test automation.
- It allows you to run automated tests against many virtual os and platform combinations with Android Emulators and iOS Simulators.
What is Sauce Connect?
Sauce Connect™ is a proxy server that opens a secure connection between a Sauce Labs virtual machine running your browser tests, and an application or website you want to test that's on your local machine or behind a corporate firewall. Sauce Connect is not required to run tests with Sauce Labs, but only in situations where the website or application you want to test is not publicly accessible.
See https://wiki.saucelabs.com/display/DOCS/Sauce+Connect+Proxy for more info on Sauce Connect Proxy