4 ways to Automate Testing in a DevOps set-up

DevOps has been practically misinterpreted by many in the last few years of its evolution. The fact being, it’s not just a technology or platform adoption, it entails adoption of fresh cultural philosophies, practices, technologies, and tools. The ultimate objective is to enable an organization to deliver software and application at a faster pace by ensuring velocity and quality as well. Hence, the approach has been structured to bring about seamless collaboration between development and operations. The collaboration has to help organizations to launch their application at speed with assurance of quality. So, how critical is the role of Quality Assurance (QA) and Testing within the DevOps scenario?

It has been misinterpreted that the DevOps movement has undermined the role of QA and Testing. However, if that’s the case, we are working on a reverse equation.

How QA is closely integrated within DevOps?

In any possible way the role of QA and Testing doesn’t diminish or get obsolete. In fact, in some DevOps models QA and security teams work cohesively with development and operations throughout the SDLC, which is also referred as DevSecOps.

One of the greatest needs and strengths of DevOps is to ensure continuous development, which can be achieved with Continuous Testing, Continuous Integration, and Continuous Deployment. Testing on a continuous basis cannot be achieved with traditional mode of testing, which generally slows down the process. Hence, Test Automation becomes integral to the DevOps Testing approach.

While testing needs to be conducted rigorously, automation has to be implemented by leveraging specific technology stacks and platforms to ensure stability of the testing process. It further enables testing teams to achieve certain goals independently to bring velocity and cut down the efforts as well.

However, no approach can work without a strategy or by just implementing the tool. Test Automation within DevOps can work wonders for your application only when the required expertise and efforts are planned and then implemented. The overall process has to be measurable towards the end of the development cycle.

Ways to make your Test Automation strategy count within the DevOps set-up

Gartner rightly states, ‘With digitalization, there is a critical need to support businesses that must operate at higher speeds and with greater agility. This has resulted in DevOps growing quickly and becoming key to many organizations in their pursuit of competitive advantage. Although DevOps delivers compelling business advantages, many organizations struggle to benefit from DevOps initiatives due to uncertainty about how to approach them.’

Strategy and expertise is critical for DevOps adoption. A group of dedicated testers need to work towards achieving your Test Automation goals. While it is a technically complex activity, if not implemented effectively it can ruin the overall DevOps strategy for your project. Hence, only understanding the application’s premise is not enough. The testing and development team must understand the overall user environment for the application. Collaboration is the key if you want your Test Automation strategy to work in a DevOps set-up.

• Understand the user environment for your application

Dissecting the application is not enough to understand the test automation requirements. In order to understand the Test Automation needs it is critical to understand every factor within the user environment for the application. It will help testing teams to build their automation strategy and seamlessly collaborate with the development function. For instance, if it’s a financial application and security is a big concern, the automation tests will focus on security testing efforts. Accordingly, the development team will be looped in for ensuring cohesive efforts.

• Combine Management and Technical experience

In a DevOps set-up development and test automation engineers collaborate to develop test scripts and expand test coverage. These scripts and codes are developed to support the Continuous Integration and Development activities. However, this can be done more strategically by combining both management and technical experience. It can help prioritize the requirements and define the quality metrics. Ultimately, it can help improvise the metrics with thorough analysis, which can make the testing efforts more proactive rather than reactive.

• Build a dedicated team of Testers for Test Automation

Assigning test automation tasks to the same group of testers can be ineffective. Automation needs expertise and clear understanding for effective planning and implementation. Hence, it is recommended to build a separate team that holds experience and expertise in test automation within the DevOps environment. Automation cannot be confined to just executing tests, it involves prioritizing and then planning the tests. An experienced and dedicated team can bring value to the overall automation process and ensure tangible results.

• Induce the cultural shift

Ultimately, DevOps doesn’t confine itself to technical implementation and execution of testing and development activities. It is a cultural shift that is needed to ensure that the strategy is collaborative and closely monitored. Developers and operations need to work together to reduce inefficiencies and bring speed to the development activity. A DevOps conducive environment has to be built to achieve the estimated Test Automation goals.

Ultimately, the objective is to write codes that help build robust applications within shorter development cycles. Quality and Speed can be ensured only when the DevOps culture is accepted throughout the system, rather than being just task-specific.

Cigniti utilizes proprietary test techniques to identify automatable manual tests. Cigniti’s test automation methodology (and team) is well accustomed to Agile and DevOps environments ensuring consistent ROI during the entire agile lifecycle.

Our test automation experts implement automated test suites with a focus on long term utilization of the suites. Connect with us and build a result-oriented Test Automation strategy for your application development needs.