Is Quality Engineering as Promising as it Sounds for DevOps?

The market disruption brought by Agile and DevOps is well known. By enhancing user expectations for quality and speed, these revolutionary methodologies short-circuited the traditional methods and dawned a brighter, people-driven, automated sun over the worldwide tech industry. While the tech industry is still trying to wrap their heads around DevOps, Quality Engineering has generated a new buzz in the air. It is noisy, but worth listening to.

A quality engineering approach is improving software development processes, instead of only changing them just for the sake of it. A conglomerate of optimal quality assurance, monitoring, and predictive analytics, Quality Engineering solutions employ futuristic technologies and are fit for any forward-looking organization. Integrating Quality Engineering with DevOps diminishes the likelihood of defects to negligible through an ongoing cycle of feedback and improvement until the desired quality is obtained.

By offering the maximum possible test coverage following a shift-left strategy for testing, quality engineering keeps a check on reliability, performance, functionality, security, robustness, accessibility, and usability of a software. DevOps has strung all the music notes together; quality engineering is here to make sure that they stay in tune and make a soothing melody.

QA doesn’t cut it anymore

Since the inception of the sci-fi genre, whatever we have seen or read has either become the reality or will become one in the near future. This future is not further than a couple years. Artificial intelligence is penetrating our lives, robots are assisting surgeries, autonomous cars will soon hit the roads. Amidst all these advancements, QA simply is not enough. There is need for something that not only assures quality but engineers it deep into the core of an application, thus, making it as error-proof as possible. Quality assurance is still required, but it needs to be revamped and upgraded to a higher cognition with the assistance from avant-garde tools, skilled people, and optimized processes.

Shifting to the left and to the right

Spanning the entire process of an SDLC from requirement phase till release phase, Quality Engineering yields maximum test coverage for producing best quality end product. By shifting QA to the left, it ensures that the set criteria are effectively incorporated into the product build at the time of development itself. On the other hand, by taking the shift-right approach of testing, Quality Engineering in DevOps works to impart utmost level of user satisfaction through valuable releases. By doing so, software quality engineering leads broad spectrum coverage of the testing life cycle and effectively manages test data and test environment.

QE for continuous delivery through continuous integration

A non-siloed software development process in DevOps methodology utilizes automated tools for code building, testing, and deploying. As each change in the code is uploaded in a central repository for faster integration, continuous delivery offers visibility to everyone involved and establishes transparency across the cycle. With change being integrated and effectuated immediately, the provision of faster feedback is activated, creating an endless loop of improvements and deployments. The enhanced visibility and dissolved silos have blurred the lines between testing and developing roles, making everyone responsible for the quality aspect of produced software.

Re-engineering Quality Assurance

The IT industry is in a dynamic state right now. Trends such as digital transformation, DevOps, and automation are acting as catalysts that will decide what shape it will take upon reaching equilibrium. This paradigm shift in the base components has generated the demand for an advanced chemical process for successful completion of the reaction. DevOps is turning out to be indispensable for organizations to stay in the game. QE services in DevOps not only keep software companies in the game but also fuel their win by reducing time to market and testing expenses while bettering quality for high customer satisfaction.

Quality Engineering powering up DevOps pipeline

While DevOps brings together development and operations teams, Quality Engineering strategy combines management, design, and operations. This holistic approach of QE in DevOps allows organizations to be legally compliant while staying aligned with the set business goals and objectives. It gets aid from IT management, product management, software and systems engineering and systems operations to develop a wholly secure, reliable, and safe application.

Automation for a suave future

Automation sits at the heart of a DevOps pipeline. The agility needed by a DevOps methodology is impossible to meet manually. A strategic combination of manual and automation processes is imperative with human professionals mainly involved in the creative and supervisory roles and automated tools taking care of the iterative steps. Quality Engineering in DevOps recruits robotic process automation tools for delegation of time-consuming tasks. Using AI and data analytics, QE services suggest modifications in the existing code and predict potential risks and threats. Quality Engineering is effective in handling threat and security concerns by fool-proofing the built code through focused monitoring, even post deployment.

Data mapping and knowledge management

There are heaps of structured as well as unstructured data generated. This data has to be properly managed and utilized to generate optimal test cases and user scenarios for successful test runs. Quality Engineering uses software and system models for scanning such volumes of data to segregate valuable information from illegible, invalid data. Through proper knowledge mapping and knowledge management, QE services help in early recognition and addressal of vulnerabilities. Quality Engineering is also effective in masking sensitive data to generate production-quality test results while protecting private and confidential user information.

The takeaway

Be it the recent failed pre-launch testing of Samsung Galaxy Fold, crash of Boeing 737s in the past few months, or blast of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 three years back, all could have been prevented with efficient Quality Engineering services. DevOps adoption is still a struggle for many enterprises. This can be simplified and streamlined by a sophisticated Quality Engineering approach.

Cigniti’s Quality Engineering services cover the Software Testing Life cycle, Test Consulting and Test Advisory services, Test Implementation, and Managed Testing services including Test Environment Management and Test Data Management. Leveraging process frameworks, methodologies, and tools, we help customers across various industries achieve first-time-right solution releases, quality improvements, and deliver a superior customer experience.

Connect with our team of experts and leverage our QE expertise to successfully achieve your Digital Transformation objectives.