As technology rapidly advances and constantly improves, so too must the development practices that create these digital experiences for customers. Because the demand is not slowing down, more and more companies are transitioning their IT practices towards adopting a DevOps culture. With DevOps in place, businesses can better streamline the development, testing, management and deployment of software products to exceed customer expectations.
DevOps provides the solution that many organizations need, however, it is not something that can be turned on with a flip of a switch. DevOps requires full understanding of procedure standardization, workflow management and automated testing before adopting this development methodology.
For example, what is DevOps in software testing? How has DevOps changed software testing? And what are the pros and cons of software testing in DevOps?
Our guide to software testing in a DevOps culture answers your most pressing questions so that you can decide if DevOps is right for you.
What Is DevOps in Software Testing?
DevOps is a set of practices within the software testing, development and delivery process that aims to automate and integrate procedures between software development, QA and operations teams. This cultural and philosophical approach involves all stakeholders within the development process—from product managers and developers to QA engineers and system administrators—allowing teams to build, test and release software faster and more reliably.
A DevOps culture aims at achieving these key principles:
- Champion a Collaborative Environment – internal teams unite with the same goal of delivering quality software through regular communication, transparency and solving problems together.
- Require End-To-End Responsibility – everyone is accountable for the application from beginning to end, no matter their role within the project.
- Inspire Continuous Improvement – adapt to changing circumstances in order to optimize performance, cost and speed of delivery.
- Automate, Automate, Automate – automate testing in the DevOps lifecycle as well as automate infrastructure provisioning and software deployment.
- Remain Customer-Focused – monitor data collected from automated processes in order to invest in features that deliver consumer satisfaction.
The DevOps development methodology in software testing means that the QA team is actively involved throughout the development cycle. Software testing in DevOps happens at every stage of the DevOps model, including software integration testing and release in DevOps, so QA teams often automate testing in the DevOps lifecycle. Through continuous testing, QA engineers can spot defects and bugs early in the project as well as better track software product performance throughout its development process.
Here’s How DevOps Changed Software Testing
In traditional testing, the QA team receives a build that is deployed within their designated QA environment so that testers can carry out functional and regression testing. QA engineers have access to this build for several days before providing a sign off on the release to production.
Software testing in DevOps changes all of this. QA engineers are required to align their testing efforts within every phase of the DevOps cycle. To do this, the QA team must:
- automate testing in DevOps lifecycle and achieve near-complete code coverage
- ensure all testing environments are standardized and support automated deployments
- update all cleanups and pre-testing / post-testing tasks with automation and align duties within the continuous integration cycle
DevOps development methodology in software testing encourages everyone to contribute towards QA testing practices. Configuring deployments, adding test cases to the QA repository and creating automated test scripts can be carried out by those not on the QA team.
Pros & Cons of Software Testing in DevOps
- Accelerates Time to Market – With software integration testing and release in DevOps, it takes less time to develop and refine functional software. Lengthy processes and dozens of handoffs no longer exist when running test automation.
- Reduces Cost – A more responsive development environment minimizes the cost of constant maintenance and upgrades. A more efficient process in place also leads to lower costs when running your development cycle. Furthermore, outsourcing QA when resource constrained can keep your development cycle on track at a stronger ROI.
- Improves Workflow Management – DevOps invigorates secure design patterns within your workflow so that you can better streamline practices while increasing communication between QA and developers with these strategies.
- Deploys Reliable Releases – Because the entire team is held accountable for releasing new features and software improvements, everyone is more proactive in uncovering potential issues resolving discovered problems. And with a shared code base, continuous integration and automated testing, defects are more likely to be discovered before deployment into production.
- Fixes Defects Quickly – Teams that work together reach the goal together—and faster. DevOps encourages stronger communication practices across teams and cooperation processes so that bugs are discovered, reviewed and resolved at a faster rate.
Cons of Software Testing in DevOps
- Growing Pains During Transition – Because the DevOps development methodology in software testing is a different approach, its implementation requires staff training and the standardization of all development processes and procedures.
- Automate Testing in DevOps Lifecycle a Must, Not a Choice – Does your DevOps test automation strategy cause you stress? Many companies prefer continuous integration and continuous delivery over test automation, but DevOps simply cannot happen without automated testing.
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High Upfront Costs – While DevOps is designed to reduce cost in the long term, a team must invest a significant amount of time and money in order to launch the DevOps development methodology in software testing within the organization.
DevOps is designed to keep your team ahead of the competition while uniting your team internally to provide the best software product for your customers. By implementing DevOps practices, everyone on your team can fully understand the role they play and the value they provide to your product, your consumers and your company.
How can your team start implementing DevOps within your company? By partnering with a QA services provider like QASource, you can speed up your team’s transition to DevOps. Our team of engineers and testers have years of software testing in DevOps experience and can guide your team towards standardizing processes and procedures for smarter, faster deployments. Get a free quote today.
