Continuous testing for DevOps: a match made in heaven
By: Mike Urbanovich
Tags: QA, Continuous Testing, Continuous Delivery, DevOps

Aren’t velocity and innovation the two buzzwords today? They emerged from the ever-growing demand for brisk software development and effective tackling of any production incidents. To smoothly design top-tier, easy-to-use solutions that appeal to customers, IT business leaders steadily undergo transformations. Adopting continuous testing (CT) for DevOps is definitely among them.

Continuous testing report 2020 by Capgemini surveyed half a thousand decision-makers. 55% of them have already embedded a CT approach into their development strategy while others are planning to do so in the future. Why? Testing early, testing as much as possible, and testing throughout all SDLC stages allows delivering more features rapidly and without detriment to software quality.

However, the path to CT is a tricky one, especially when it comes to its integration into the DevOps-based projects. How not to cause any process delays and seamlessly overcome arising obstacles? In this article, you will know about continuous testing benefits, its role in DevOps, and the ways to seamlessly embrace it for such projects.

5 pros in favor of continuous testing

Being a part and parcel of a software development life cycle, CT focuses on business risk mitigation at any process stage and provides quick results to developers on the latest features delivered. Thus, they have everything to improve code and guarantee overarching quality maintenance.

In contrast with traditional testing methods, CT serves to tackle issues early while creating software. With it, a company:

Accelerates product delivery. Applying automated tests each time an engineer presents a new part of code, helps streamline the testing process across the entire SDLC. Reduces cycles of risk-informed feedback. Due to the continuous nature of assuring quality and a focus on delivering non-stop feedback, the development team has enough time to fix spotted issues and make better code design decisions. Improves code quality leading to business continuity. Even one defect that occurred within a large-scale, interrelated system may lead to software downtime, which seriously affects the company’s productivity. Creates a reliable and consistent testing process. And rather fast. If done correctly, a little time is required to set up a truly agile, solid working mode, where test automation plays first fiddle by maintaining a configured environment for test execution. Eliminates #1 testing bottleneck in DevOps. Previously siloed from other parts of the process, QA turns into a cross-functional operation across the entire SDLC creating a robust testing flow able to unlock quality at speed.

With that in mind, due diligence to introducing CT into current development methodologies increases process productivity and efficiency.

Continuous testing: a fit-for-purpose approach for DevOps

DevOps methodology is all about close interaction between development and operations teams helping streamline decision-making, deliver stable product features, and introduce innovation briskly.

When supplemented with CT, the development strategy considerably enhances software quality:

Shift-left testing identifies critical and major issues earlier

Shift-right testing supervises software operation in production and spots those rare, minor glitches that still appear due to challenges in simulating precise production conditions.

Seemingly, what could go wrong? However, no pain, no gain. When trying to embed the approach in DevOps-enabled projects and evolve it, companies sometimes face a number of challenges:

Costs-related issues. To tackle them while creating and configuring an effective test automation solution that takes time and effort, a test management platform may be of help.

To tackle them while creating and configuring an effective test automation solution that takes time and effort, a test management platform may be of help. Achieving in-sprint automation. In order to fast-track repetitive regression testing by automating within a sprint, organizations can create less complex test cases and complement the definition of done with test automation.

In order to fast-track repetitive regression testing by automating within a sprint, organizations can create less complex test cases and complement the definition of done with test automation. Poor coordination between teams. To overcome a siloed structure that is so common to QA and Dev teams, companies may benefit from tailored employee engagement strategies focused on raising their awareness.

Thus, those obstacles that seem to be so complicated at first glance become simply a part of the process upon a closer look, when applying a thoughtful, individual approach.

Implementing continuous testing in DevOps: 4 steps to succeed

Companies undergo 4 compulsory stages to introduce CT on the project and get stronger code, raise the efficiency of testing, mitigate business risks, make smarter release decisions. Let’s have a closer look at them all.

Set up continuous integration and deployment pipelines

Each member of the software engineering team should download the code into shared repositories as often as possible. This is how a CI automation tool could immediately start running tests and providing the specialists with the first feedback on the passed and failed tests in real time. It fast-tracks the process of handling occurred errors and delivering novel features to production without interruptions.

2. Implement test automation

CT goes hand in hand with automated testing allowing businesses to speed up the development process, decrease operational costs, and optimize test coverage. Thus, the team briskly determines build stability while eliminating human risks. In addition, once up and running, test cases are reusable, meaning that they may be further applied for other use cases or even on diverse projects.

3. Ensure all-inclusive cooperation between teams

Product quality on DevOps-enabled projects is a shared responsibility of all its members. To ensure the success of CT, all specialists should work together as one focusing on the common aim. In particular, test automation solution architects (TASA) should prepare test cases prior to code creation and cooperate closely with software engineers to ensure code optimization for further automation.

4. Guarantee a pervasive quality assurance process

It means that tests should be carried out throughout the entire software development life cycle, from the stage of early planning to deploying to the production environment. Thus, the team steadily polishes product quality ensuring its high performance, reliability, and security.

A final note

Within an increased competition, companies are seeking more efficient ways of delivering top-tier products at short notice. Among them, continuous testing being integrated into the DevOps culture stands out clearly. When implemented right, it helps enhance software quality, improve interaction between teams, and accelerate delivery.

Therefore, to smoothly adopt CT on DevOps-enabled projects and avoid interruption in processes, companies should stick to CI/CD pipelines, benefit from test automation, enable close collaboration between teams, and test throughout the entire development cycle.