How DevOps will Impact Software Testing

Last updated on March 7th, 2023 at 04:12 am

Excerpt: The software development life cycle is moving forward. Creating effective software in less time is a constant force that will motivate development to seek suitable strategies for sending products. This is where DevOps enters the picture and has been the center of attention for a long time.

Table of contents:

• Introduction
• What is DevOps
• How does traditional software testing function?
• What exactly is testing in DevOps?
• Characteristics of testing in a DevOps environment
• Conclusion

Introduction: 

The development and implementation of practices and methodologies that make it easier to use are ongoing. A profitable DevOps testing strategy for most organizations begins with implementing the adaptable best practice of Continuous Integration (CI). Programmers verify software together into a single codebase several times per day.

In DevOps, the two teams work together to achieve their main goal: widespread and faster delivery of elevated software to meet changing customer needs. DevOps is a technique in which programmers collaborate with IT (Ops) to automate the delivery process and infrastructure. Testing is critical to ensuring software quality at all stages of the innovation lifecycle.

What is DevOps?

The primary objective of DevOps is to bring together Development and Operations teams to develop good, quicker, and much more adaptable software. Whereas Agile focuses on delivering high-quality software, DevOps broadens the scope to include customer deployment and feedback. This will enable your organization to address the changing customer requirements more agilely. DevOps encompasses all relevant stakeholders in the product’s development, such as marketing professionals, programmers, quality assurance, operational processes, sys admins, managerial staff, safety, and assistance.

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How does traditional software testing function?

Testing in a traditional environment is not the same as testing in a DevOps environment. Software testing used to look like this back in the days of the traditional approach:

• Only covered one stage of the life cycle
• Begun after the software had been fully developed
• It was a tedious process prone to errors and took ages to accomplish.

A significant difference was that software testers worked on a completely different team, separate from the development team. If an error was discovered during testing, it was complex and expensive to go back and make the necessary changes. This was structural: the specific error scenarios had to be well-identified from the start. That was tough to sustain the necessary quality and standards within the estimated time under these conditions.

What exactly is testing in DevOps?

Essentially, testing in DevOps seeks to strike a proper balance between objectives, response cycles, and skillsets amongst development, QA, and operations teams. It encourages collaboration among all three teams while automating the delivery process and infrastructure upgrades.

What characteristics are there, testing in a DevOps environment?

Software testing has evolved significantly in the years since Agile’s ascension. Since then, testing approaches, tools, and quicker and more highly interactive techniques have already been initiated into the testing sphere.

That’s how testing appears in a DevOps environment:

• Testing seems to be an ongoing and automated process that allows continuous and speedier software delivery.
• Each phase of the software development process is covered by testing (SDLC).
• Various types of testing are required at each stage of the SDLC. If an error is discovered, this reduces the time spent on backtracking.
• Testing is, therefore, no longer exclusively the responsibility of a single team. Able to share testing responsibilities enables all of us to know the ramifications of each change.

Creating a DevOps Testing Approach:

A productive DevOps testing approach aims to build, test, and release software quickly and error-free. It is good to try to create and automate your software delivery workflow from the beginning. Suppose you successfully establish a Continuous Delivery DevOps pipeline right away. Your organization will become more successful in the market because you’ll be able to generate better software at the fingertips of your users and customers much more quickly.

If you’re integrating a DevOps workflow into an existing organization, where you begin tends to depend on your existing research, deployment practices, and the backlogs in your application distribution process. There are many other techniques to measure the current situation of your enlistment processes, such as the use of workflow visualization tools such as charts and graphs and process management maps to break down and fully comprehend your existing delivery processes.

Best Practices for DevOps Testing, which change the software testing completely:

We will go over some testing best practices that groups should adopt to achieve maximum DevOps value.

1. Make use of test automation wisely.

Development teams integrate code to a centralized source in a DevOps environment. It thus means that the system is constantly updated due to continuous integration (CI). To reduce the risk of errors, you must continuously test the code using various types of tests, such as:

• Unit examinations
• Functional evaluations
• Acceptance examinations
• Tests of integration

You could even automate the above tests to get feedback on consistently integrated code quicker and earlier. More productive DevOps teams use more automation testing cases and frequently combine automation suites. Test automation extends beyond the assembly level in and out of areas such as:

• API evaluation
• Performance evaluation
• Load tests
• Testing for endurance

It does not mean that the whole scope of testing must be automated, and manual testing should be allowed in some cases. Unless you automate a testing procedure that isn’t beneficial, you’re just automating and adding waste to the process.

And that’s why it is highly recommended to use high-quality test data, Recognize test scenarios that seem suitable for automation, continue improving the automated testing pace, run test cases in parallel, and Redrafting the testing plan regularly with the latest automated testing scope.

2. Find test automation professionals.

A professional staff of such engineers would be critical in meeting automation targets. To boost the number of test automation coverage by utilizing the particular expertise of automated test engineers. A sign of a successful test automation engineer would be:

• An erstwhile manual tester who learned to read and write automation scripts.
• A computer programmer who previously worked as an automation engineer.

They are in charge of:

• Recognizing test cases that are automatable
• Constructing scripts with a test automation structure of choice
• Choosing the tool that suits your team’s or company’s testing strategy

You could see how automated test techs play a part in successfully leveraging the power of test automation in a DevOps culture. At the time of software release, the automated test engineer is in charge of running automated tests on the based environment providing information on any bugs discovered. Then they work collaboratively with the developers to find solutions to those bugs.

3. Choose the best testing tools.

To reap the rewards of test automation, you must incorporate the appropriate testing equipment for your organization. When selecting an automated test tool, the first thing to consider is whether your team has the necessary experience and competencies to use that tool. Then, determine whether the overall price of the tool, along with training, updates, and maintenance, is well within the testing budget. Every time verify to see if the tools have adequate technical support.

These are some of the widely used test automation tools:

• Selenium is a free and open-source framework for automating web application testing.
• Katalon Studio is the top-rated automated testing software for web, API, desktop, and mobile testing.
• JMeter  Java-based open-source quality and load testing tools are used to test a wide range of protocol types.
• SoapUI again, an open-source, cross-platform automation tool with a user-friendly graphical interface (GUI).

4. Metrics are used to track performance.

You can monitor key metrics like:

• The number of test cases that passed versus those that failed
• The number of bugs discovered
• The recurrence of failed test cases
• The automated test suite’s running time

These metrics focus on providing information and insight into areas that are prone to failure, and continuous testing produces immediate results for them. Metrics also allow teams to predict whether the count of errors will actually reduce as more changes are made to the system for a long time. Then, to overcome failures, more creative solutions can be implemented.

5. Maintain accurate documentation.

Keeping proper documentation helps to organize and make the testing process more accurate to all in the organization. Successful DevOps teams frequently create Testing-related documents.

• QMPs (Quality Management Plans) 
• Test Overview report
• Specifications for test cases
• Reports on risk analysis
• Reports on regression tests

Maintain all documentation in a secure location that is visible and easy to access for everybody in the organization. Standardize document file types and use frameworks to maintain quality and thus value.

Conclusion:

DevOps testing is critical to delivering high-quality software. DevOps is indeed the ultimate solution for increasing or maintaining market competitiveness. It involves a shift in how software is delivered, facilitating quick product delivery and a positive customer experience. It lowers the risk of launching unsatisfactory software, which benefits both sides. Transformation is intriguing, and DevOps has a promising future. There will be plenty of web and mobile app testing opportunities on the horizon!!