Automate your Software Pipeline
With remote working becoming the new norm, there has been an increase in digital applications in different industries. For example, medicine, travel, entertainment, and education. IT teams are working harder than ever to ensure that the development and testing steps are comprehensively attended to. There arises a need for thorough testing to be conducted at every step of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) using Test Automation Services.
Test automation has been a function that has aided in testing for bugs in applications that frequently get changed. The need of the hour is to manage testing operations across the board. This is done by enabling scaling of activities while optimizing the quality of the product and increasing the speed of delivery. Hence the need for robust TestOps to drive test automation.
Let’s look at where and how TestOps can assist an organization improve the quality of CI/CD pipelines and aid the overall DevOps culture:
TestOps lending a Helping Hand
Two major trends pilot the need for an inclusive testing experience. First, the increase in the number of web applications being produced, and second, various modernization practices are changing the atmosphere of development practices. The increase in web applications has also paved the way for many application codes to be transported to most applications’ front end. Developers now also need to cope with shorter and more frequently occurring cycles, wherein the pace of innovation calls for continuous testing mechanisms to be put in place.
It is here that you start realizing the need for TestOps. By helping create a more enhanced testing plan, TestOps enables testers and Reactjs developers with a centralized platform where they can identify what tests to run. So effectively, TestOps helps DevOps better integrate into software development cycles. This is how the true integration on DevOps happens in the pipelines that IT puts together for the QA engineers. Moreover, TestOps keeps the development pipelines completely transparent to developers and testers so that unique application needs can be met successfully.
Stages of TestOps
There are four main stages of TestOps that are integral to understanding how it works on existing architectures. Let’s understand about each of these components and how they aid in obtaining better test automation results:
Planning
Planning becomes a prerequisite before moving into the early phases of the software development cycle. It helps the team set a bound test coverage and allows them to set priorities on task.
Code complexity and other nuances such as what to automate and test manually can be determined in the due process of planning. Other questions, such as if there might be reusable components that the team can use or if an organization needs to build one, can be answered here.
Control
This stage allows a team to create consistently high-quality tests. It helps to monitor all the tasks and controls the workflow process. While small teams can have oral agreements or documents, larger teams need processes. Standardizing best practices and ensuring that each contributor creates a high-quality test and code becomes a mandate for best results. Several tests are constantly run. This ensures that comparing results can help QA teams ensure that they are working to user standards and best practices in the industry.
Code review and merges occur in this phase, wherein the application’s test coverage must be increased. This can be done by running a test, comparing the coverages’ scopes, and ascertaining an effective process.
Management and Execution
These are core aspects of aiding the processes and tasks comprehensively. It refers to how higher authority and the overall team have a communication system. Practices such as labeling and naming conventions that help organize the tests in folders and suites are undertaken according to different situations and distribute the workload.
Management is crucial when trying to scale up or down, as bugs need to be caught in the early stages of the development cycle. This helps to ensure that developers can commit to code.
Insights and Analytics
Insights and Analytics refer to the continuous feedback loop created in a CI/CD pipeline where there is information on the testing processes and teams. This helps the team understand several things, including how the project quality is if the product is release-ready and the team’s effectiveness as a whole.
Insights can help gauge performance over time, which can be used to ensure that the team continues to produce process improvements to gain efficiencies.
Types of Testing
Most customers expect end-to-end support over multiple platforms, including mobile and web application testing. This is done to ensure that test is truly integrational. Here is more about these testing types.
- API Testing is a kind of software testing that test if the API has requisite functionality, is secure and reliable. When it comes to performance. It is a part of integration testing, where it’s critical for automating most tasks.
- Mobile Testing refers to the process by which applications for modern mobile devices are tested for functionality, usability, compatibility and much more. It can be either automated or manual, and work across a variety of applications that range from native apps, responsive web apps and hybrid aps.
- Web Application Testing is a software practice that ensures the quality of an application by testing if the functionality is working as required by the organization. It helps in finding bugs at any time, before the release or even on a day-to-day basis. The ability of the application to handle heavy traffic, function smoothly and security from malicious software and hackers is tested in this process.
TestOps bringing Change
Testers and developers alike are increasingly adopting TestOps. The sheer reason is that TestOps helps test to go forward continuously whilst covering all the endpoints of continuous integration (CI) and continuous development (CD).
Omnichannel access to applications from remote places has increased the necessity of security and performance testing. Against this backdrop, TestOps can help optimize the quality of tasks and consequent product delivery.
Adopting TestOps as a methodology helps to enhance existing skill sets and allows integration and deployment of continuous builds. It supports the testing and production processes and seamlessly integrates DevOps processes into a streamlined test execution. Offering actionable insights and efficient management systems, TestOps can help tailor the team to work with scalable solutions.
