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End-to-end integration testing tests every aspect of your system from beginning to end. This is often the most time-consuming aspect of the software testing lifecycle. Teams that embrace the DevOps framework can accelerate delivery by automating the most time-consuming integration tests.
Let’s overview the best practices for creating a DevOps integration testing strategy that will save you time, effort, and money in the long run.
Why is test automation critical to DevOps?
DevOps is all about delivering quality at speed to address issues with delivery timing and business values. Success with DevOps requires automation and continuous delivery. How do you accomplish continuous delivery? The answer lies in automation and faster feedback loops.
Test automation provides quick and accurate feedback to developers and testers, allowing for speedy responses to mistakes, defects, and changing requirements. Test automation makes it possible for businesses to utilize DevOps in a manner that is both timely and economical.
According to IBM, it costs 6X more to fix a bug found during the implementation phase than to fix one identified during the design phase. Additionally, if a bug is found in the testing phase (right before production), fixing it costs 15X more than it would in the design phase.
You might like: The Top Continuous Integration Testing Tools for Effortless Testing
Let us explore a real-world scenario for identifying the advantages of using DevOps and how it can help organizations flourish when combined with test automation.
NETFLIX'S DEVOPS CASE STUDY: AUTOMATE IT IF YOU CAN'T DEFEAT FAILURE.
Netflix is a streaming service that offers entertainment. They had difficulties offering customers uninterrupted video feeds across a variety of devices. The functionality of each component must be checked by engineers at Netflix. However, it's challenging to find a system that offers zero downtime.
Netflix has adopted a DevOps culture that uses continuous integration and deployment techniques to create, test, and deploy apps. With a focus on automation, they were able to achieve near-perfect uptime.
BEST APPROACHES FOR BUILDING A DEVOPS INTEGRATION TESTING STRATEGY
- Leverage continuous testing: Fast feedback is essential to the DevOps methodology, which is all about releasing software as early and frequently as feasible. Continuous integration testing enables teams to find errors right away, allowing for quick feedback. In turn, this quickens release cycles, lowers the cost of fixing problems, and lowers risk.
- Use code-free test automation: The final stage of testing is typically done by non-technical staff members because they are most familiar with the day-to-day operations of the organization. As a result, you should select a codeless automation platform that allows business users to write tests in plain English. Being able to develop test cases without using code is quite advantageous, especially when it comes to end-to-end integration testing. This significantly reduces the learning curve and makes it easier for your entire team to embrace test automation. Any employee can use the tool, taking stress off of IT departments and reducing labor costs.
- Shift-left testing: The "shift left" testing trend aims to push testing toward the initial phases of software development. The concept of shift-left perfectly fits to the end-to-end integration testing process. After each feature is ready to use, you should write end-to-end test cases. End-to-end integration tests should be carried out last and only if the results of the preceding forms of testing are inconclusive, as they are more sophisticated and typically slower.
- Make sure you have accurate test data: No matter how good your test cases are, they will be useless if you give them faulty data. You must make sure your tests receive high-quality data at the precise time they require it in an appropriate quantity. For this reason, you need a strong test data management (TDM) procedure.
- Consider the overall maintenance challenges: End-to-end integration tests are challenging to keep up with. This is due to the fact that the test must be adjusted each time a user interface element of the program changes. Also, if you don't update your tests to reflect UI changes, they could overlook important errors that impact the user experience.
Instead, you should choose a test automation platform that detects changes automatically and fixes them without the need for human interaction.
The success of testing greatly depends on the best practices you adopt in your DevOps culture. Opkey empowers customers to fully embrace DevOps practices in their ERP implementation. With support for more than a dozen packaged applications and 150 technologies, Opkey empowers teams to create complex, cross-app tests without coding, complex set-up, or fine print. This is an all-in-one solution for enterprises to shorten their DevOps testing lifecycle, reduce stress on IT teams, and “grow up” into the new age of rapid development.
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