{"id":14693,"date":"2020-06-29T19:54:06","date_gmt":"2020-06-29T14:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cigniti.com\/blog\/?p=14693"},"modified":"2020-08-19T23:43:02","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T18:13:02","slug":"continuous-testing-devops-test-automation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/blog\/continuous-testing-devops-test-automation\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Continuous Testing deserves more credit from the IT industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cDigital acceleration can’t happen without better-quality software, and software testing matters more than ever for quality at speed.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0This quote by the leading analyst, Forrester, cannot be\u00a0<\/span>more true<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While global enterprises have accelerated their digital adoption amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential that they do not leave software testing out of the picture. If truth be told, software testing is what will offer a flawless end result. Without it, all the enterprises will be left with our huge amounts of wasted efforts on unaesthetic strokes and a non-appealing end picture.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When Agile and DevOps methodology were introduced, it was believed that the Waterfall practices are being left behind for good. Agile promised to bring in speed within the software development life cycle, while DevOps was supposed to enhance cross-department collaboration by eliminating silos. Together, Agile and DevOps showed the mettle to lead\u00a0<\/span>highly<\/span>\u00a0collaborative and accelerated SDLCs that would shorten the time-to-market by pushing releases into production faster than e<\/span>ver. Amidst all the frenzy of an exciting new way of developing software, the IT teams forgot about the most critical, yet most overlooked function \u2013 software testing. As a result, the adoption of the new and exciting methodologies failed tremendously leading to the belief among several organizations that DevOps or Agile is not for\u00a0<\/span>them<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0If only<\/span>\u00a0they had paid attention to the testing part.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Software testing has always been the most ignored aspect of an SDLC. There is never enough time to test, always a tight deadline, and incredible pressure from the top management to perform the releases in time. Given the situation, testing is often considered the biggest bottleneck in the SDLC, causing delay to the releases. But, what if testing could happen at the same time as development? Dev and Ops are anyway supposed to work together in a DevOps-driven SDLC, why not involve the \u2018Test\u2019 teams too?<\/span>\u00a0With DevOps, enterprises are building a Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) pipeline led by automation. However, a CI\/CD pipeline cannot fulfill its purpose without parallel testing, known as Continuous Testing (CT).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is continuous testing?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In laymen terms, continuous testing means to test continuously at every stage of the software development life cycle. Continuous testing goes beyond the shift-left strategy that implied the initiation of testing early in the life cycle. Rather, it is about shifting left as well as right, implying to test everywhere. Therefore, continuous testing can be defined as a strategy to start testing early along with\u00a0<\/span>the beginning of the development, and then continue testing at each stage as the SDLC progresses toward the release and deployment. Continuous testing coupled with automation ensures that the developed software is always in a releasable state, excelling in terms of quality<\/span>\u00a0and<\/span>\u00a0offer<\/span>ing\u00a0<\/span>visibility into the business risk coverage<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Benefits of continuous testing<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The key benefits of continuous testing are:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n