#continuous testing devops

The fast-moving digital landscape of today hinges on moving ‘value to production’ quickly along with the assurance of quality. In other words, enterprises should fast forward their value chain consisting of processes such as build, test, and deploy in an effective manner. This has become important due to the changing customer preferences for better quality products or services. And unless enterprises are in alignment with the changing market dynamics, their products or services may face obsolescence in no time. Moreover, since customer experience has become the prime differentiator for the acceptance of a product or service in the market, quality testing has acquired a critical dimension in the overall scheme of things.

This has led to the evolution of DevOps as a methodology that encompasses the adoption of new technologies, tools, practices, and philosophies. DevOps calls for creating a seamless culture of collaboration between the two principal departments of any software organization - development (development and testing) and operations. DevOps is a step ahead of Agile where in addition to the development and QA teams working in tandem, the operations team is made part of the value chain as well. The thrust of DevOps is on enabling the continuous development, integration, and delivery pipeline through test automation.

How test automation advances the cause of DevOps?

With the complexity of software applications increasing due to the incorporation of new features and functionalities, the quantum of testing data has increased manifold. Furthermore, since manual regression testing is found to be grossly inadequate in identifying glitches, the importance of continuous testing solutions has taken centre stage. It helps testers to run test cases continuously by taking large volumes of data as input and in the process, identify the built-in glitches. Test automation requires testers to understand the technical landscape, tools, testing methodologies, and the way to create test scripts. To build a successful DevOps testing strategy, testers should use the CI/CD tools in collaboration with the development and operations teams.

Also, with the traditional waterfall model of testing, the scope of testing gets reduced as it becomes nigh impossible to validate every aspect of the software. However, with DevOps automated testing, the usability of an application can be validated by virtualizing the number of users. The flurry of reports generated by the test automation tool allows testers to gain a clear insight into the underlying glitches. The other benefits that test automation can bring along in the entire value chain are -

Helps shape the discussion surrounding the automation of processes, thereby reducing errors.

Enables the delivery team to  understand the system behaviour expected by the product owners.

The clarity of testing process helps to reduce the amount of rework later.

Helps the development-cum-delivery teams to adhere to the prearranged turnaround time.

Prevents cost overruns arising out of any rework to remove bugs.

How to get DevOps test automation right

To ensure the success of a DevOps testing strategy, the testers should get their test automation process right. Doing so would entail understanding the user environment, tools to be used, and deliverables of the software.

Know about the user environment: To enable the success of DevOps quality assurance through a credible test automation process, understanding the user environment becomes critical. It helps to create a blueprint for collaboration between the development and operations teams. For example, should the application in testing deals with the BFSI sector, the role of DevSecOps (read security testing) gains significance. 

Driving a proactive testing effort: To ensure continuous testing in DevOps, both developers and test engineers should collaborate in order to enhance the test coverage area and quality of test scripts. It also helps to set up the quality metrics and make the testing efforts proactive.

Set up a dedicated team: The automation of tests requires planning and strategizing at the beginning. A QA team that is only into the execution of tests may not achieve the expected outcomes of DevOps. Thus, to derive tangible results from the automation process, the setting up of a dedicated test automation team becomes important.

A robust reporting mechanism: Any form of test automation can be successful in achieving its objectives, provided it has a robust reporting mechanism. The automation tool should have the requisite dashboard with reports of ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ clearly delineated.

Conclusion

It is only through the success of DevOps QA that enterprises can guarantee the quality of a software. Since test automation is at the core of such a strategy, it should be done in right earnest and by following the due process. To ensure that speed and quality become an integral part of the SDLC, the DevOps culture should be adopted by business organizations.

Check out this eBook discusses the How can Testing in the World Of Agile & Devops make sense for businesses today?

The rapid technological developments in this digital era have led to a situation where a product’s capability is not the sole factor to win in the competitive market. In addition to meeting the pressing need or to outstrip competitive offerings, a product also must consider the pace of marketing and user’s experience. In these circumstances, the only choice left with software developers is to bring out apps that meet every requirement of customers, are updated regularly, and delivered on time, all the while making sure to provide a seamless user experience. There is just no room for error, leading to more and more developers opting for continuous testing.

There is a sea change occurring in the manner of software testing. Traditionally, it was performed after completion of the development cycle, causing production delays if any issues came up or bugs found. Now continuous testing is the norm right from the beginning of the software development life-cycle, and all through the development process. Today, testing quality is everyone’s responsibility. Developers keep identifying and resolving issues as and when they arise and deliver regular updated and error-free applications to the end users.

A Culture of Collaboration and Quality

As this is a technical change, it is imperative that the people involved in providing continuous testing services have the right mindset and develop the right tactics, considering testing to be everyone’s responsibility. As testing spreads out across the SDLC, developers and test engineers must find ways to build a mutual understanding of the standard level of quality and efficiency needed to be maintained right from the start of the development process.

Importance of Tests Automation

Testing must not be taken to mean an event that needs to be done at a certain point. Instead, it involves the application of a wide array of tests all through the testing process. This requires integration testing, unit testing, production testing, and automated end-to-end and regression testing. With continuous tests performed at different points all through the development process, it is possible to identify and fix issues with the functionality as well as performance and security. This helps in preventing any kind of obstacles to delay the release and cost the business a fortune.

Although tests performed should focus on variety, it is important to be consistent with automation. In automated testing, a test script is written that interacts with the functional elements of their code in an automated fashion. This helps the developers get immediate feedback on the quality of their code, as soon as they check in their code into the source control. No doubt, automated testing gives better scalability and reliability compared to manual testing.

Leverage Cloud Platform for Scalability and Speed

The whole process of establishing and maintaining the physical or virtual infrastructure and administering test across the various browsers, operating systems and mobile platforms can be both a costly and complex procedure. To get over the situation, cloud technology is providing enormous success. Now developers are making use of the cloud platform for cross-browser testing, helping in offloading all issues related to infrastructure on a daily basis, perform test across almost every type of browser/OS combination, and making sure to keep the test times to a minimum.

Developing a Well-Planned Approach to Analytics

In an optimal state, continuous testing solutions require a well-planned approach to analytics. It is necessary to incorporate a certain degree of analytics in the testing process to help in applying insights into the product team. With smart analytics, it is possible to detect the various functional issues like which mobile platforms and browsers are showing signs of failure and the level of consistency in the test results of an application.

In addition to functional testing, analytics could also be used to assess user experience and performance like how heavier traffic loads are impacting the user experience, and how new updates to the code are impacting the application performance. The availability of analytic insight helps developers to ensure that the software is developed and deployed with the quality built in.

Conclusion

The Digital Era Demands Continuous Testing

The executive leadership needs to recognize the fast change seen in the world around them. Mobile technologies and cloud-based applications are widely used for performing work at lightning speed. The focus now is more on seamless end-to-end customer experience.

In this digital era, the ability to bring out the best products and give the best digital experience remains the key to attract and retain customers ahead of your competitors. This is made less daunting by the successful application of continuous testing.

If a software is what drives our interconnected world, then API, or the Application Programming Interface, is the glue that makes it happen. It helps the software to connect across websites, devices, databases, systems, networks, and frameworks - not to speak of the other APIs. APIs help to keep things orderly, segmented, and integrated into the fast changing digital world. For companies that are increasingly embracing Agile and DevOps models of development, testing and delivery of products/services, APIs play an important role. To put it succinctly an API is a set of tools, standards, protocols, and codes that enable the functioning of a software to its optimal level. Such is the criticality of APIs in the seamless functioning of a software system that continuous testing of the same should be pursued as a part of Agile or DevOps.

The complexity and daunting nature of testing an API have meant it is not always executed rigorously. This is partly due to the demands of business on releasing applications quickly to meet the competition and address the changing market dynamics. Thus, even though automated testing has made much headway in the Agile cycle, the testing of APIs has left much to be desired. This calls for implementing continuous testing as part of the DevOps initiative. Let us find out why continuous testing in DevOps is important to ensure the successful testing of APIs.

Continuous testing services & DevOps

DevOps came into being as Agile was found to be lacking in meeting some of the business objectives. With changing customer preferences and the advent of new technologies, the success of businesses hinges on the customer experience. Since providing a rich customer experience is not exactly a one way street and requires the setting up of a total quality culture in the organization, Agile has been found wanting in meeting the objectives.

Creating a total quality culture in the organization needs the participation of all the stakeholders and departments. And since operations play an important role in offering the last mile connectivity or support to the customer, it is needed to be integrated in the whole exercise. Hence, we have DevOps (Development + Operations) as the next logical step of Agile as far as development, testing, delivery and customer query resolution are concerned.

The DevOps methodology is underpinned by Continuous Testing and Delivery. In other words, implementing a shift left testing strategy throughout the SDLC and beyond. Continuous testing solutions help in keeping the software updated at all times. They also help in ensuring the quality of APIs at all levels given the multitude of devices, database, networks, systems, and frameworks, which undergoes upgradation from time to time.

Why do APIs need continuous testing services?

The IT environment is going through rapid changes in terms of the use of technology, methodology, and processes. The changes are evident in the form of new devices, operating systems, architecture, databases, applications and others being adopted by the customers. Since the APIs need to incorporate these changes, they should be tested continuously and with considerable rigour. In the absence of such testing, the software containing the APIs will not function seamlessly leading to a bad user experience.

Benefits of testing API on a continuous basis

Quality of testing: If the APIs are tested post the development phase, the focus would be more towards ensuring the performance of the APIs rather than identifying the scenarios where they can fail. This approach often results in developing favourable test cases, which in the long run do not test the APIs for inherent glitches in the truest sense. On the other hand, if the APIs are tested continuously at every level, their integration with other components of the software will be tested and validated. This will result in raising the bar as far as the quality of software and customer experience are concerned.

Test coverage area: The very fact that API testing is a daunting exercise due to the presence of multiple interfaces often makes test experts not to execute it in a comprehensive manner. This approach leaves a lot of glitches to remain unidentified thereby impacting the quality of software. However, by embracing the continuous testing in DevOps model through test automation, the test coverage area of the APIs can be increased comprehensively. This ensures the software works well with the devices, server, website(s), other services, operating system, framework, or network. Since a software does not function on a standalone basis, increasing the API test coverage area will go a long way in enhancing its quality. Additionally, it will not burden the customer department with sundry quality issues.

Reusability of tests: Using an automated shift left testing in the early stages of development can be reused later in multiple environments especially when new end points are added. The reusability of API testing allows a greater collaboration among various stakeholders in the SDLC. This leads to improving the quality of software comprehensively.

Enhancing the customer experience: A software built and deployed on the ground needs interfacing with various components, systems, databases, and networks. If the interfacing process works well the software functions in accordance with its stated objectives. This invariably leads to a better customer experience and achieving ROI.

Conclusion

The quality testing of APIs is of utmost importance to ensure the functionality, performance, navigability and security of a software. However, the testing needs to be carried out on a continuous basis to account for the changes in the configuration of devices, operating systems, and networks etc. In the ultimate analysis, the quality of APIs will determine the quality of software and impact the user experience and ROI in a positive way.

The implementation of digital initiatives has brought about positive changes for businesses. The changes range from simplifying procedures, quicker storage and retrieval of data, and a faster time to market for creating new revenue streams, better customer feedback mechanism, meeting compliance and addressing risks. The rapidly changing digital landscape means businesses have to quickly adapt to the latest technological developments. These developments relate to the areas of cloud, augmented reality, predictive analysis, artificial intelligence, robotics, big data, and IoT.

As digital initiatives bring a better value proposition for businesses and help in fine tuning the customer services, they have fuelled the customer appetite for better products/services as well. In order to reach faster to market and to ensure quality, development cum testing models have undergone changes. The changes have discarded the traditional waterfall model and have given way to Agile and DevOps.

In the DevOps model, continuous testing and delivery go hand in hand. The reasons pertain to their ability to quickly meet the rising consumer demand and address the quality issues. With continuous testing and integration being integral to DevOps, businesses can effectively deploy glitch free products and services. Moreover, they can carry out timely upgrade in line with customer feedback, changing technologies, or business objectives.

How can continuous testing services positively impact digital transformation?

The integration of QA services in the overall SDLC helps to quickly identify and eliminate glitches. It enables seamless integration of end to end product segments, thereby enhancing the user experience.

Check quality in real time: The widening scope of developing and deploying a software in real time implies that the code has to be tested on a continuous basis. The underlying objective is not to disrupt the customer experience. Any update to the software should, therefore, be done while it is in use. This makes the process complex and risk prone. To address such issues, continuous testing services should be made integral to the entire SDLC and beyond. It must be understood that along with developing new software products to edge out competition, ensuring the right customer experience is important as well.

Quick removal of glitches: The changing dynamics of customer behaviour imply that the software should be fine-tuned to suit the user requirements. This entails frequent changes in the codes across the SDLC. While this approach makes the software to incorporate the necessary changes, there is an increased risk of glitches too. A continuous testing framework validates the codes at every level, thereby ensuring their quality.

Constant monitoring of quality during test automation: The benefits of test automation in ensuring quality across the SDLC are well documented. However, the performance of the automated test scripts should be checked against a slew of test variables (real and virtualized) as well. As test scripts run across platforms, devices and networks, their quality needs to be top notch. And only continuous testing in a DevOps environment can ensure the quality and effectiveness of test scripts.

Increase the test coverage area: A continuous testing framework covers the entire SDLC and beyond through test automation. This leads to an increase in the test coverage area vis-a-vis a manual testing process. An enhanced testing area leads to the better identification of glitches.

Bring in more transparency: Continuous integration testing across the SDLC generates a slew of reports on the dashboard. The reports give a detailed result of the test right from the development to the deployment stage. These reports help the entire team of developers and testers to analyse the impact of test automation across platforms, devices and networks. The transparency of continuous testing in DevOps can enable teams to observe quality issues at first hand. Also, the reports showing the success or failure of tests can ensure better coordination between teams, functions and processes. The transparency can result in enhanced quality compliance across processes and sub processes.

Quicker testing process: As more test automation is implemented as a part of DevOps, it leads to a faster execution of test scripts. Thus, a quicker execution of test scripts leads to a better end to end integration and faster time to market.

Conclusion

The challenges of digital transformation and changing market dynamics have forced business enterprises to scale up their development and delivery of software products. The advent of Agile paradigm has led to the faster development and deployment of software, a key yardstick for business enterprises to feel happy (and complacent).

However, while doing so, continuous testing is often overlooked or somehow given lesser priority. This approach can make the software more vulnerable from the perspective of security, quality and compliance. If such a software is deployed, it will result in quality issues as well as a bad user experience. In the increasingly competitive digital landscape of today, such an application can simply mean trouble for its makers.

To prevent such an eventuality and to ensure that quality is maintained at all levels of the extended SDLC (including deployment,) continuous testing needs to be brought to the centre stage. Furthermore, the emerging areas of digital technology such as Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Big data, Predictive Analysis, and the Internet of Things (IoT) need QA at the core of everything. Enterprises are realizing that Quality cannot be separated from development and deployment.

What is continuous testing?

In an Agile ecosystem, the fast pace of developing software did not quite match up to the sluggish pace of manual testing practices. This resulted in the minimum coverage of the test area and the subsequent prevalence of quality issues. This led to situations where organisations were forced to slacken the pace of development or testing, leading to inefficiency.

Moreover, since Agile deals with the streamlining of the development and Quality Assurance processes, the inefficiencies of the operations team are largely left untouched. This lacuna has an impact on the end user experience as any feedback on quality is not promptly addressed. This has led to the adoption of the DevOps paradigm.

Here, quality is not treated as a component of the development process alone, but of the whole SDLC and deployment stages. The emphasis in DevOps is more on adopting a holistic approach towards process improvement through test automation.

Adopting a continuous testing framework

Due to the built-in inadequacies of manual regression testing, the reliability and efficiency of end to end SDLC was questioned. To get over the problem, software testing across the development and delivery stages is made an integral component of DevOps. The objective is to identify the quality issues early on in the SDLC and mitigate them before releasing the code for the next stage. The iterative process of conducting continuous testing services across all stages needs a change in the culture of the organization as well.

Continuous testing services helps enterprises to bring in these benefits -

Swift identification of quality issues across the build and deployment cycles

Prompt resolution of user feedback leading to a better user experience

Quick development and deployment of software into the market

Executing successful digital transformation strategy, wherein an update to the software is done without impacting the user experience

Better end user experience leading to a greater adoption of the software

Software meeting the overall business goals as far as speed, quality, and efficiency are concerned

Better realization of the ROI

Continuous testing framework and the need to change the mindset and culture

The embedded mind-set of business stakeholders and employees is mostly tuned towards achieving the production targets. However, with stringent compliance regulations in place, frequent release of the software without addressing the QA issues at all levels can be counterproductive. This calls for a shift in the mind-set of teams to treat quality assurance as an integral part of each and every activity of the overall SDLC.

Key features of continuous training services

Risk mitigation with optimization of the test coverage area

The quality assessment exercise takes the build to the next stage of the SDLC

QA processes are aligned with the compliance mandate and business goals

Optimization of testing leading to the elimination of rework

Incorporate continuous QA into the organizational culture as part of the DevOps philosophy

Conclusion

The integration of continuous testing framework into the development and deployment processes of a business enterprise leads to the quick identification and elimination of quality issues. As the quality of software improves across the spectrum, the user experience follows suit. This helps the enterprise to retain customers and achieve ROI.

DevOps aims at continuous development, testing, improvement, and deployment of software applications in order to cut down on delays in time to market and response to customer queries. In this software development approach every coding segment is tested post development and is followed by integrating the same with the rest of the application. As continuous testing, DevOps forms the crux of this approach, it should be carried out effectively. DevOps testing services include performance, functionality, usability, and security related tests, and post deployment gets monitored on a continuous basis to see whether it performs to its optimal level. A significant aspect of DevOps quality assurance is using automation mainly sourced from the cloud. Automation can quicken the pace of testing besides possessing the ability to check glitches that might be missed during the monotonous rigmarole of manual testing.

Before delving into the best practices to be followed in DevOps quality assurance framework it is important to know the benefits that accrue to the organisation by using the same:  

·         Brings about a synergy among Development, Testing, and Operations teams by making them function as one unit

·         Increased automation in continuous testing DevOps helps in faster detection (and elimination) of glitches

·         Ensures faster delivery of software in the market and quicker response to customer queries

·         Ensures faster updation of software as per changing market dynamics and shifting of customer preferences

·         As stakeholders form part of the planning, development, testing, and deployment exercises in DevOps quality assurance, the overall goal doesn't get shifted

·         Greater efficiency among teams leads to cutting down on flab and better realisation of ROI

Best practices to adopt in continuous testing DevOps

DevOps testing services should ensure that any stage of the application development process should be ready for deployment into the next phase. And to let that happen, the following practices are needed to be adhered to as a part of DevOps quality assurance.

Automation and Monitoring: Continuous testing DevOps involves testing of the test environment, strategies, data, tools and execution methods, and with automation leads to greater validation of codes and faster identification of glitches. In fact, any user response gets quickly attended leading to better monitoring of the development process or creating better versions of the product.

Testing on a continuous basis: Every aspect of the SDLC undergo testing on a continuous basis, thus leading to an overall better end product. Here continuous testing DevOps involves the following approaches:

1. Shift left and Shift right: The Shift left process forms a part of continuous integration of software while Shift right comes into being when the coverage area of testing is expanded following feedbacks from users.

2. TDD & BDD: These methods lay down the priorities, requirements, functionalities and risk factors of an application to be developed for all stakeholders. These can be used to generate better and faster automated test cases.

3. Continuous integration: Thanks to continuous testing DevOps, there is quicker as well as continual integration of individual segments into the overall jigsaw of SDLC. This leads to faster time to market and deployment of the application.

Inclusion of non-functional testing: In a traditional testing framework, non-functional testing such as performance, load, usability, etc. is done infrequently as opposed to functional testing due to its longer time requirement. However, in DevOps testing services it is integrated into the continuous test environment by tweaking the CI test process.

Conclusion: