Innovation in hardware and software is the key to growth and improvement in technology, which also fosters the modernisation of organizational processes. One such development is DevOps, which is the collaboration of Development and Operations. Becoming a DevOps engineer has become a popular option for technical professionals which has grown the scope of the role. It encourages the use of automation to do routine work, allowing workgroups to focus on what’s significant – solving complex problems and making better products. Now, this is predominantly relevant to testing!
Gone are the days, when the project was passed to the testers only after the coding was completed. With “shift left testing,” many organizations have realized the importance of incorporating testing earlier in the software development cycle. This helps achieve continuous feedback by informing the developers incessantly about the quality of their code. It enables detecting and fixing problems much earlier, thus reducing risks.
So, for any successful software development process, comprehensive, continuous testing is critical. Here comes the next generation of practice, weaving testing into the DevOps process, namely DevTestOps.
DevTestOps = DevOps + Continuous Testing
DevTestOps is intended to improve the tester’s perceptibility on the project enabling continuous improvement through various stages of the software development lifecycle, which includes:
- Product Management: To capture, define and elaborate requirements for a feasibility check.
- Software Development: To analyze, design, develop and test the software.
- Test Management: To analyze software specifications, besides designing and executing test cases.
- Continuous Integration: To merge the code changes into a central repository.
- Continuous Deployment: To develop software in sprints, ensuring the components be released with maximum efficiency.
- Continuous Monitoring: To provide feedback when the application is in production.
How does DevTestOps Work?
Underlining the importance of the testing process, DevTestOps incorporates continuous testing into DevOps. Not only has it managed to eliminate the boundaries between development and operations, but it has also enabled testers to have a big role to play in the development cycle.
Let’s take a brief look into some of the types of testing in DevTestOps:
- Exploratory Testing: Here, the testers follow their instincts and experience with systems to test, instead of predefined requirements. The process focuses on determining any loopholes that might have been skipped during test case writing or the test process.
- Manual Testing: Automation is not easy to pursue without manual testing. Simply put, manual testing is extremely crucial and just cannot be replaced.
- Ad-Hoc Testing: It’s an informal approach to testing as it does not involve any specific test cases. Here, team members test the software as and when they want. Basically, the process involves testing applications arbitrarily in no specific order.
- Automation Testing: Any tasks that take more time and are repetitive in nature must be automated, ensuring easy daily execution. This aids testers in saving time and focusing more on important functionalities of the application.
Why leverage DevTestOps?
The major fallback of normal DevOps and testing is the delay with each level or iteration. The slow feedback process creates delays in deployment. Testing is inevitable in every single environment of software delivery to test the delivering functionality. The goal of DevTestOps is to include continuous testing in the DevOps process. When we say continuous testing, it means that the focus is more on starting the testing process right from the consideration of the requirements through to the production and monitoring phase.
Is DevTestOps a new way to achieve Agile?
DevTestOps transforms the way products are traditionally developed.
In the traditional software development lifecycle, testing is done only after the entire application is developed. This approach has two major drawbacks. First, the bug gets detected near the end, which in turn delays the release as it takes to fix the issues. Second, since the codes have already been merged it gets even harder to isolate and fix bugs.
As mentioned before, in DevTestOps, the application is tested from the very beginning, from development until production. This enables the provision of early feedback to the developers and testers which helps in fixing the defects during the early stages, thereby reducing the fixing cost as well.
Basically, DevTestOps breaks the walls that separate the developers, testers and the operation. All departments play an equally important role in product development. Contrary to the old way, the product is owned by each of the team members. And each of them is equally responsible to make the product better.
Benefits of DevTestOps
- Improved Quality: When the testing is done at an early stage and more often, bugs are eliminated faster in each stage of the development lifecycle. This way, the time taken to find and fix a bug is substantially reduced.
- Enhanced Collaboration: Different work groups are unified towards a common goal. Clear and consistent communication makes certain that the features work accordingly, ensuring faster delivery to the client.
- Quick Feedback: The teams get continuous feedback about features being used at each stage of the development lifecycle.
- Faster Delivery: Continuous feedback, automated builds, and deployment aim to improve the speed of releases, with bugs fixed at an early stage. With a faster delivery, one gains an edge over the competitors.
Implementing DevTestOps
Since DevTestOps is DevOps plus continuous testing, many tools and practices that apply to both are relevant to DevTestOps as well.
- Choose the right tools and frameworks in each phase of the delivery pipeline. This will help in improving the quality of software and speed of delivery.
- To save time and get faster feedback, automate as many processes as possible.
- Continuously monitor the pipeline that includes development, testing, and deployment of features. This will troubleshoot problems as quickly as possible, avoiding unnecessary delays.
- As the system becomes more complex with blockchain, machine learning, etc., gather all system information to predict and fix issues.
Full implementation of DevTestOps will need buy-in from everyone. The organization must understand that increased costs are far outweighed by improved efficiency. Besides, the developers, testers and operations team must accept that testing happens at every stage, from inception to production.
Conclusion
DevTestOps is a great way to improve the release cycles and streamline the product deliveries as per the market and user requirements. With the best use of automation and without compromising on any benchmarks related to quality and expenses, the approach contributes to product success. Establishing a flawless DevTestOps environment requires collaboration, transparency, and trust; the teams must closely work, collaborate, and seek support on release and deployment. If an organization does not already have these qualities, then the management must instil these qualities within teams.
How does Testsigma help?
Testsigma specializes in automated testing solutions. The whole philosophy is to remove the pain points of test automation by using Artificial Intelligence. The platform is ideal for implementing continuous testing and by extension DevTestOps. The testers get full control over every detail of their testing process, from planning to analyzing. It gives insights into what has already been tested and what still needs to be tested, ensuring accountability and increasing team efficiency. Some of the notable features include continuous integration, actionable and quick feedback, a unified platform, shift left testing, scalable test environments, and artificial intelligence, just to name a few.
To know more about the features, visit testsigma.com.
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