The Role of DevOps in QA Testing

Anushree Chatterjee

“DevOps is not just about the development and operations teams working together, but it’s also about the entire organization adopting a mindset of innovation and collaboration.”

These are true words from Patrick Debois, who coined the term DevOps.

If you look at what DevOps is and what it does, you’ll realize that it is an abstract concept that can be brought to life. This concept affects not just the development or operations teams but also every single process in the organization. This also includes quality assurance (QA).

Let’s understand how DevOps has imprinted on QA testing.

Understanding DevOps

Before we look at the effects, we need to understand the cause better!

DevOps is a way to fastrack software shipping by bringing harmony between developers and operations. Earlier, teams worked in silos which led to communication gaps and delayed releases. To combat this, continuous processes were brought in by embracing CI/CD, Agile methodologies, and more. But it didn’t stop there…

DevOps has something called 7C’s, which lists all the aspects of the DevOps lifecycle that go on continuously. Software testing, continuous testing to be precise, is one of them.

Read more about DevOps over here – What is DevOps?

DevOps Testing

In DevOps, testing is not just a one-time phase after development. It happens continuously and is integrated into every part of the STLC/SDLC process. This is why DevOps testing is often referred to as continuous testing.

DevOps Quality Assurance v/s Traditional Testing

Let’s say you’re a developer who’s building features for an e-commerce website. You have a timeline within which you need to finish your work because, after that, testers will begin to analyze it. This is the traditional way of testing.

In the DevOps way of doing things, you’d be expected to write unit tests for your code, too. While you work on your features, testers will come up with UI tests. Ideally, it’ll all be automated. The belief is that as soon as you check in your code, unit tests will be run on it. Once that passes, a higher level of automated tests like integration and system or end-to-end tests will validate it.

This example shows the power of DevOps. Another point to note is that the pressure isn’t just on one team. The whole unit needs to come together. Hence, practices like Agile Scrum and Kanban are usually better choices for implementing DevOps since they already promote collaboration.

Here’s a summarized version of the differences between the two forms of testing.

How Testing Fits Within the DevOps Pipeline

Believe it or not, testing is a part of all stages of the DevOps pipeline. In some stages, it may be at the forefront, while in others, it may take a backseat.

• Planning stage: Planning involves deciding the features to be developed, identifying potential risks, and setting goals for quality and performance. By including testability in the planning phase (e.g., defining test cases, acceptance criteria, and expected behavior), teams can ensure that the tests align with the business goals and technical requirements.
• Development stage: Over here, unit testing is usually seen. Developers write these tests alongside the code. By running unit tests frequently as code is written, developers can catch bugs early and prevent small issues from becoming big problems later.
• Build stage: During the build process, automated integration tests and smoke tests (build verification tests) are triggered. These tests ensure that the new code integrates correctly with the existing code and doesn’t break anything.
• Test stage: After the build, a more comprehensive round of tests is executed. This can include functional tests, performance tests, security tests, and more.
• Release stage: Before the code is deployed to production, it undergoes final testing in the staging environment, which mirrors the production environment. Over here, you can have user acceptance tests and smoke tests.
• Deploy stage: Deployment to production is often done in small, frequent releases, and it’s essential to test continuously after deployment to catch any issues that may appear in the live environment. Usually, post-deployment testing is used here.
• Operate stage: The software is actively running in production, but that doesn’t mean testing stops. In fact, monitoring and testing are essential to ensure that everything works smoothly.
• Monitor stage: Real-time monitoring helps detect any issues that users might face and provides insights for future improvements. It ensures that software remains stable and secure after deployment.

DevOps Software Testing Techniques

There are a few techniques that are characteristic of DevOps testing. In fact, if you see teams doing them, then you can be sure of them using DevOps to some extent.

Test Automation

Test automation involves using specialized software to run tests automatically instead of doing it manually. This helps speed up the testing process and ensures consistent, repeatable tests. Since DevOps focuses on continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD), automation ensures that tests run quickly and frequently without requiring human intervention each time. This makes testing more efficient, especially when developers commit code multiple times a day. Test automation tools are heavily used here to incorporate various types of testing.

Read more about automation testing over here – What is Automation Testing?

Shift-Left Testing

Shift-left testing means moving testing activities earlier in the development lifecycle. In traditional software development, testing happens after development. In DevOps, testing begins as soon as coding starts. By testing early, you can catch bugs and issues before they get too complex and costly to fix. It also improves the quality of the code as it’s being written, rather than waiting until the end.

Common sightings of shift-left testing are:

• Developers write unit tests for individual code components right from the start.
• The Test-Driven Development (TDD) approach is being used. This is where tests are written before the code itself.

Continuous feedback from these early tests helps developers fix problems right away.

Read more about shift-left testing over here – Shift Left Testing – Software Testing Done Early.

Continuous Testing

Continuous testing is the practice of automatically testing the software at every stage of the DevOps pipeline. It’s an ongoing process of testing code as it’s developed, integrated, and deployed. Since DevOps promotes frequent and small code changes, continuous testing ensures that each change is validated and bugs are found quickly, rather than waiting for a large test phase after development is completed.

To achieve this, automated tests are integrated into the Continuous Integration (CI) process, so every time code is committed or merged, it runs through a series of automated tests. Different types of tests, like unit tests, regression tests, and performance tests, can be run as part of the development workflow.

Here’s an extension of continuous testing.

Read more about continuous testing over here:

• What is Continuous Testing?
• Continuous Integration and Continuous Testing: How to Establish?
• Continuous Integration and Testing: Best Practices

Collaboration Between Teams

In DevOps, development, testing, and operations teams work together throughout the lifecycle of the software. When everyone works together and shares responsibility for quality, testing becomes an integrated part of the development process, not a separate phase. This collaboration ensures that everyone is aligned and focused on the same goal: delivering quality software quickly.

Types of Testing in DevOps

You will generally see the following types of testing being done as a part of DevOps testing.

According to the testing pyramid, these three types of testing are done at different levels.

• Unit testing: It involves testing the smallest parts of the software, like individual functions or methods, to ensure they work as expected. It helps developers catch errors early before they build more complex features.
• Integration testing: This checks how different modules or components of the software work together. It ensures that individual parts that are working fine on their own work well together when combined.
• End-to-end testing: This is a high-level view of the application. The aim is to verify the software from an end user’s perspective.

Read more about these over here:

• Unit Testing: Best Practices for Efficient Code Validation
• Integration Tests vs Unit Tests: What Are They And Which One to Use?
• Integration Testing: Definition, Types, Tools, and Best Practices
• End-to-End Testing

Then, there is the next set of tests that ascertain whether the builds are stable enough for other stakeholders to test.

• Smoke testing: It is a quick, high-level test that ensures that the build is stable for further intensive testing.
• Sanity testing: Similar to smoke testing, the aim is to check if crucial parts of the application are behaving sanely after changes.
• Regression testing: This is a thorough testing that is used to make sure that new changes do not disturb existing functionalities.

Here are some good resources to help you understand these better:

• What is Smoke Testing in Software QA?
• Smoke Testing vs. Sanity Testing
• Smoke Testing vs Regression Testing – Key Differences You Need to Know
• What is Regression Testing?

Apart from these, you have some non-functional forms of testing like:

• Performance testing: It evaluates how well the software performs under various conditions, such as heavy traffic, high data load, or multiple users.
• Security testing: This checks for vulnerabilities in the software and ensures that it is protected from external threats or unauthorized access. In fact, security testing is at the heart of another variant of DevOps called DevSecOps. Read: Security Testing

Once the application is released, production or post-deployment testing comes into the picture. This usually involves monitoring the application, looking for performance issues, functionality checks, and security testing.

Here are some good resources to help you understand this better:

• Production Testing: What’s the Best Approach?
• Why Testing in Production is Necessary in Modern QA Strategies

The DevOps Tester

It is natural that the DevOps way of life is going to ask more of testers. Thanks to the DevOps culture, QA is an integral part of every stage of DevOps. The transition looks something like this:

DevOps Testing Tools

When it comes to testing tools, look for ones that:

• Support test automation
• Integrate with CI/CD
• Are easy to use for all team members
• Low test maintenance efforts are required

Of the many tools available in the market, one tool that can improve your DevOps testing is testRigor. It is an AI-powered cloud-based tool that makes testing in DevOps environments very easy. Here’s how:

• AI-based test creation: testRigor uses generative AI to allow easy test case creation. You can write test cases in plain English, which makes it easy for anyone to use this tool.
• Stable test runs: Unlike most other test automation tools, testRigor does not rely on implementation details of UI elements like XPaths and CSS. The tool perceives the element like a human. You can simply write what you see on the screen, and testRigor will do the rest. For example, click on "Login" is enough for testRigor to find the login button on the screen and click it.
• Negligible test maintenance: Test automation is notorious for incurring test maintenance. But not with testRigor. The tool uses AI to make sure that you are not spending your time redoing existing test cases.
• Vast capabilities: testRigor offers an array of features that will let you automate all kinds of functional, regression, end-to-end, acceptance, UI, and API test cases. You can even test across multiple platforms and browsers using this tool.
• Continuous testing: You can integrate with other platforms and services to build a strong testing ecosystem.

Conclusion

In DevOps, testing is not just a final phase; it’s integrated into the entire software development lifecycle. Keeping this in mind, one can get the most out of DevOps testing if one keeps a quality-first mindset and uses smart tools to automate the different DevOps testing processes.

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