Role of Test Automation in DevOps

DevOps is a multidisciplinary approach that creates an advanced development environment by combining development, IT operations, modern practices, and tools. When test automation is carried out along the DevOps pipeline it aids in faster deployment of the software. DevOps supports continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD), allowing the testing to be conducted earlier in the software development cycle. When testing is conducted earlier, it offers a much larger scope to improve the product quality by rectifying the errors/bugs in the earlier stage, which would otherwise amplify and cause severe issues if left unidentified earlier.

The success of the DevOps lifecycle depends on test automation which ensures that the developed software quality is top-notch. Continuous testing is a critical part of the DevOps cycle that lowers the operational and infrastructural risk and facilitates greater quality and improved speed, reduced cost, and increased accuracy. Hence, the success/failure of the end-product depends on developing it in a DevOps environment and implementing automation testing along the pipeline.

 Test Automation and DevOps

DevOps is the modern-day software development approach that can achieve the desired speed and agility by implementing test automation. Automation testing plays a pivotal role as it supports the dynamic CI/CD pipeline of the DevOps cycle. DevOps is a cultural shift that organizations are embracing for better and faster deployment, and test automation improves the quality with nearly 100% accuracy.

By implementing test automation, DevOps practice can benefit from the following:

  • Increases the process reliability
  • Test automation can detect the bugs earlier, hence, making the product deployment easier and quicker
  • The error rate is considerably reduced
  • Simplifies the process and promotes accurate and faster test case execution

Fig – DevOps Lifecycle

In the DevOps cycle, the test automation process has taken a shift-left approach, wherein testing is performed from the beginning of the software development cycle, reducing the length of delivery time while improving the quality of the release. This approach is purely focused on improving the quality to offer a great user experience, which will eventually improve the brand value and ROI.

How does the Automation Testing Process improve the previous cases?

The automation Testing process reduces the SDLC life cycles and follows the points mentioned below to improve the previous cases –

  • Improves speed
  • Offers fast feedback
  • Provide reliable results
  • Efficient result
  • Minimizes time and cost
  • Minimal human intervention

What role does Automation Testing play in DevOps?

Test Automation plays a crucial role in the following situations:

  • Incorporating test automation in DevOps, manual testing is minimized considerably as the automation processes take over. As the process is automated, the obvious human errors can be reduced and proven to be successful for repeated executions and regression tests.
  • It comparatively becomes easier to check an application after each step than to compare it at the end of the deployment. It makes it easier to correct each step than finding bugs after completing the software.
  • As advanced coding knowledge may be required for conducting testing at the API level, automation testing handles this task with ease as the process is automated and does not demand any coding knowledge. However, coding may be required only to set the process.
  • To correct the test cases in an estimated time limit and remove the errors, developers must change the code multiple times. The automation testing process offers an easy way to overcome these problems.

How to make test automation successful in DevOps

Here are a few points to consider yielding the best results from using test automation in DevOps:

Implementing testing simultaneous to the development

In the DevOps cycle operating on a continuous release approach, testing is carried out simultaneously to the development. By following this approach, issues can be fixed early and efficiently. This is an efficient way to reduce cost and improve time-to-market with improved quality.

Flexible test scripts

As the DevOps process consists of continuous integration, it is important to create flexible test scripts of higher quality to support the continuous integration process. The flexible scripts will support regression tests to ensure high accuracy and performance.

Choosing the right automation tool

It is important to choose the right test automation tool that will support the DevOps process efficiently. Make sure to use the tool that possesses all the capabilities that will suit your requirements.

Maintaining single test flow

It is recommended to test one thing at a time. Single flow testing will reduce the process complexity and makes it easier to find out the faults. Running multiple tests at a time can be a cumbersome process.

Building reusable test cases

Building reusable test cases will considerably reduce the time, cost, and hassle being taken to create a new test case. Organizations have reported that they have saved immense time and cost by creating reusable test cases.

Codeless test automation

Codeless test automation is the ideal choice for testing in a DevOps environment as it allows easy and faster product release across the complex CI/CD pipeline. Codeless test automation helps achieve the business objective by improving quality while reducing cost and risk.

Yethi’s test automation solution for banks and financial institutions

DevOps is the trend in the software development process banking and financial software processes are no different. To support the complex banking/finance software and ensure the developed software system is of high quality, Yethi offers a world-class test automation solution. Its test automation platform, Tenjin, is a 5th generation tool with robotic UI plug and play capabilities that can automatically learn and relearn to give higher testing accuracy.

Tenjin will help address the functional and non-functional issues in the complex banking/financial software system. With its half a million-test case repository, Tenjin can significantly help reduce time, effort, and money.

Importance of Continuous Testing in Continuous Delivery and Integration

The quality of software can be determined when it adapts to changes and promptly responds without any delays. However, overtimes with extensive use the code may change, and manual testing needs to be conducted again to identify the impact of these changes on the functionalities of the system.

A software is manually tested at the software development stage but comes with several drawbacks as follows:

  1. Manual testing of regression packs delays the release of the software. It takes weeks and months to get feedback from the developers as the written code is tested. The entire process is relatively time-consuming and expensive.
  2. Even the most advanced and expert testers may not perform regression testing with accuracy. It might be hard to detect the impact of the set of changes in a complex software system through inspection.

All about Continuous Delivery

Alongside code writing, it is equally important to focus on quality during continuous delivery. Testers work closely with developers to help them create unit tests. They start by writing code to automate the small number of tests that cannot be covered by unit tests. Continuous delivery allows us to rapidly test product with our users and collect data on the possible outcome. Continuous delivery enables you to carry out experiments quickly in the on-going production stage.

With continuous delivery, there is no need to ensure quality of software at the end of the development cycle before its launch. The code goes straight to production allowing for quality check at the same time it is created. The testers closely work with the developers to ensure that the quality is maintained.

Automation propels testing and focuses on the quality of the applications, and so most of these applications are tested in the unit testing phase itself. The tested code is deployed at the production stage for continuous delivery as soon as it is checked into source code management and passes a deployment pipeline.

Why Continuous Testing is important?

Developing software and testing them are not two separate activities, but a part of the same equation. Hence, testing should be performed simultaneously along with developing the application. Automation like test automation, deployment automation, and environment automation allows you to execute these changes faster with minimum effort.

Application and systems need consistent updating of test documentation to keep it ready with the changes in the applications. Many different types of tests, both manual and automated, need to run continuously throughout the delivery process. Followed by continuous delivery and integration, continuous testing automation is included in the deployment pipeline. The deployment pipeline allows creating packages that can be implemented in any environment and runs unit tests, providing feedback to developers.

These test packages need to pass comprehensive automated tests that run against them. These packages are available for self-service other environments for activities such as exploratory testing, usability testing, and ultimately release after they pass all these automated tests. Automation testing is important for continuous delivery, which is followed by continuous deployment. Hence, it gives rise to the need for continuous testing to keep a track on changes.

In the deployment pipeline, the changes are implemented simultaneously with continuous integration during product release. If the common defects are not highlighted in the deployment pipeline, it could delay product release. However, some tests are improved and updated in the pipeline if defects are detected later. The focus here is to find the issues as early as possible to reduce the release time of the product.

How Continuous Testing can improve Continuous Delivery?

Implementation of continuous testing in continuous delivery can benefit your delivery pipeline. The following are the points that would explain how continuous testing can improve continuous delivery: –

  1. Executing API, UI, and Performance testing along with Regression testing will ensure the quality of the app in various customized cases. Continuous testing will allow the developers to perform a live test of the implementation, functionality, and behaviour of their code with testing tools.
  2. The DevOps team can implement parallel tests with automatic notifications after making the necessary configurations to the CI environment. Testers can notify developers whenever there is a failure in any build component. Testing of all changes can be done automatically using continuous integration.
  3. The QA team can verify and validate the product quality by running regression, load, and functional tests deployment. The automation testing will be continuously carried out if the test module configuration is correct. In case if there is a build failure in the system, it can be fixed by manual testing.  

There are some best practices for continuous testing in continuous delivery:

  1. Continuous testing enables you to test operating systems and devices before production. It saves money in the long run as instead of running a large volume of test cases, load tests implemented every day at specific target areas reveal smaller bugs and fix them immediately.
  2. Accurate results can be obtained conducting test simultaneously during the development phase as compared to running tests in a controlled lab environment.
  3. Detecting defects and fixing them will be much easier and can run at the same time if the entire test suite is divided into several smaller tasks.
  4. To have adequate knowledge and detect the issues or discrepancies in app architecture and test automation, the metrics must be properly used. Proper use of metrics can also help up to prevent the risk of failures and its impact.

Conclusion

Continuous deployment and continuous delivery require a well-structured and planned environment for continuous testing. In absence of which CI and CD effort would not be successful. At Yethi Consulting, we follow an agile test automation framework. Our scriptless test automation platform, Tenjin, is a plug-and-play banking aware solution. Its robotic capabilities enable them to learn and adapt to the application and its updates. Regardless of the complexity and number of updates, Tenjin facilitates continuous testing, minimizing the manual effort and speed up the test execution.