Implementing DevOps Quality Approach – Different principles

Continuous testing and quality monitoring together with continuous test development based on TDD, BDD and shift-less, as well as shift-right testing are all crucial for DevOps quality. At the same time, performing quality checks at different points in the DevOps cycle is also the responsibility of everyone involved. For example, the emphasis at continuous build is to find if the build has the potential of interfering with the operation while validating usability and functionality has focused upon at continuous development. The focal point of continuous integration is to validate security, performance, usability. To ensure quality in DevOps, clear understanding of potential risks and priorities with respect to business performance and customer value is also crucial. Let’s take a closer look at some key aspects that drive an integrated DevOps quality approach.

An automated testing process and continuous quality monitoring:

These are related to the continuous build, development and deployment process. With a completely automated process of testing, every aspect (from test planning, test strategy, test environment set up to test data provision and test execution including functional and non-functional testing) is covered. Validation checks are performed with quality analysis tools while newly created/defined validation checks are automatically included in the complete set of existing quality checks. Based on instant user reports and production incidents, quality level of applications is monitored closely and continuously by setting up a quality automation framework.

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The Essence of Agile Testing

Testing is an integral part of any development cycle. Initially, the entire process used to be step by step where after the codes were written by the programmer, the testing team would take over and a long back and forth cycle would begin. These days to shorten the development cycle new types of testing methodologies have been integrated. Agile testing is a methodology in which there is a continuous iteration of the development and testing throughout the software development cycle. As a result, both the coding and development go hand in hand with testing.

What is different with Agile testing?

With Agile, the buzz word is continuous. An agile testing company is into continuous development, continuous integration and continuous delivery while simultaneously doing a continuous delivery.  While this summarizes the entire concept of this kind of testing, it is important that we understand how it actually benefits a company. When many things happen at the same time, it helps speed up the process. Companies that have adopted agile testing services are able to deliver the product much faster. It is not just the speed that is of consequence here. Continuous integration and communication with the end user, developer and tester ensures that the product is as perfect as it could be. Earlier, companies would launch a product and after some time launch its newer version with more features and lesser bugs and continue to do so every few months till the product itself was phased out. With Agile testing, the companies are able to reduce the development cycles. This has in turn shown positive affects on the revenues. 

Adopting Agile testing

When a company adopts Agile testing for its products, it is bringing about a change in the entire work culture. The teams which earlier worked as independent units and only passed on the product after it was finished up to a certain level now work as a cohesive whole. They have to implement strategies on every aspect of the work cycle. So right from how to approach requirement, architecture, design to coding and testing - all evolve to new heights. The teams now have to look at realistic time frames for delivery without getting trapped between the development and testing cycles. So the time schedules are adhered to. In fact, time is fixed before the scope is outlined. Quality and testing also are done on the basis of the new timelines. Instead of waiting for months to look at the product being developed, the next checkpoint is always round the corner for the team to evaluate. It is a win win process for all and therefore it is not a surprise that it is becoming popular.

Source: https://techarcisblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/the-essence-of-agile-testing/

How Does Software Testing Help Businesses?

Software testing is generally considered a cost source. Managers usually think of compromising with the quality of software testing to reduce its cost. And at times, they prefer to avoid it completely. Reason? They think that its contribution for building up revenue is not great. However, this belief isn’t true. In fact, Software Testing is very useful for optimization of business. It ensures fast system performance even under highest workload. 

Need of Software Testing

Applications and software are intended to facilitate different tasks within a business organization. If they fail to perform their tasks, organizations can not meet their goals. More often than not, badly tested software fail to provide required output efficiently. Such software also affect the scalability and performance.

Stiff Competition

Today, users are spoilt for choice, and companies face stiff competition. Thus, it has become imperative for all software to work fast and smoothly and deliver performance. If they do not perform according to the expectation of the users, they will switch to your competitors’ products in no time. 

There are a number of things that can help us understand the importance of SoftwareTesting for businesses. Some of them are given below:

Different kinds of Test

There are different sorts of tests that a software testing company conducts to ensure the required performance and desired results. Some of the tests are Load Test, Failover Test, Reliability Test, Stress Test, Targeted Infrastructure Test, Baseline Test, Network Sensitivity Test, Rendezvous Test, Volume Test, and Result Test. Thus, the product is evaluated on various parameters during software testing to ensure better performance.

Advantages of the Software Testing

Software Testing plays a vital role in adding more value by offering the highest quality product to the customers. It helps build your brand image and reputation. Providing high-quality products makes your customers happy. 

You can also escape several unpleasant experiences, thanks to QA & testing. If your customer is not satisfied with the product quality, you might have to take that product back. This whole process not only costs you time and money, but a part of your reputation is also gone.

Thus, software testing services are very important as they help you please and satisfy your customers. Moreover, they are also useful for reducing cost, increasing sales, improving user experience, and optimizing the business.

Load Testing in Agile Environment - Do You Know it All

Load testing in agile environment is being extensively used in most software development scenarios in order to help developers to respond to changeability. However, the industry still withholds certain misconceptions about load testing. Think you know it all? Read on to be amazed!

Importance of performance testing in Agile Methodologies

Most developers and code testers prefer load and performance testing in agile development methodologies over traditional approaches as it proffer opportunities to access the direction all through the development lifecycle. Moreover, there are certain benefits of using agile methodologies,listed below:

• The widely accepted approach to development significantly decreases testing costs of the software
• It helps developers to build the right software by rectifying the bugs during initial stages
• It empowers load and performance testing teams to incessantly plan their release to optimize its value right through development, enabling them to be as competitive as possible in the market.
• Specialized problem solving units with well - Load testers - are entities which receive inputs through sensors and act on through effectors.

Some important attributes which must be followed during load testing in agile environment are mentioned below:

• The involvement of active user is imperative
• The testing team must be allowed to make decisions
• Requirements develop, but the timescale remain fixed
• Step-by-step release and iteration
• Gathering requirements at high level; visual & lightweight
• Complete focus on the incessant delivery of products

Read more: http://techarcis.com/load-testing-in-agile-environment-do-you-know-it-all-2/

Various Agile Testing Practices Being Adapted By Global Enterprises

CEO at Microsoft Corporation, Satya Nadella, has started preaching a more nimble agile implementation approach for building software, as part of the recent transformation the company has undergone. A recent survey of IT and development professionals shows that agile is the new norm. The majority of development projects and teams have embraced this new methodology while the pure waterfall model is slowly moving towards minority.

It was a little over a decade ago that agile software development first entered the scene as a reaction to traditional approaches for software development projects. While it was initially promoted as a movement, many looked upon it as a major challenger to some of the more entrenched practices such as the waterfall model. Its test-first development practices like test-driven development inspire confidence and promote simple designs. In TDD, the developer begins with writing code for an automated test case, which describes either a new function or a feature that needs improvement. Then he produces minimum amount of code to pass that test and finally refactors the new code so that it can meet acceptable standards. Testing the code at an early stage diminishes the need of excessive debugging. Another technique used by agile techniques is behavior-driven development, which stems out of TDD. In BDD developers combine ideas and techniques of TDD with object-oriented design and analysis.

Key Testing Methodologies in Agile

Agile development involves a number of different testing methodologies. Let us learn more about them in detail.

Unit / Component Testing: Individual software units, related data, and a number of other use procedures are all tested in order to assess how tight the operation is. With the help of the unit test, the behavior of a small piece of code- known as a unit- is tested and the tester notified whether the test has passed or failed. Automated unit testing provides various benefits which closely aligned with several agile principles. The key benefit is that it produces working code faster, with fewer bugs. It includes a collection of skills processes and tools which support agility. Besides, you get quick feedback from running tests, giving developers the ability to cover more code. And as we all know, the Agile Manifesto is all about working software. Automated unit testing makes this quicker than any other process.

Integration Testing: From the perspective of an agile workflow, the UI is bound to feature numerous experiences of changes and multiple versions with user feedback and team input being deciding factors. In this regard, test automation in UI maintenance becomes extremely time consuming. In order to enhance the overall coverage while not allowing the maintenance costs to escalate, automation needs to be done at a systems and services level.

Acceptance TDD: In the acceptance test-driven development, a test-first approach is followed. The development team first clearly understands the acceptance criteria and creates test cases based on the bullet points that are clearly labelled in the acceptance criteria. Any modification to the same may be done by setting up a prior planning meeting in negotiations with the Product Owner.

The primary idea of acceptance test driven development involves a set of tests that should be passed before an application may be regarded as finished. It is a well-established fact that testing an application before delivering it is an invaluable practice.

Continuous Integration: Continuous Integration is an agile development technique where code is checked in small increments and tested against the larger code base. This is a development practice that has been around for long. In fact, it has been around for so long that most developers tend to take this practice for granted. However, it has been found recently that this is not the correct practice.
The build of code is only half the battle won. A successful build will tell you that in terms of syntax, the code holds together but it won’t give any suggestion on how the code works. The practice of continuous integration should ideally involve automatic code deployment to the platform on which it is supposed to reside.

Agile teams usually have a self-organizing setup with a variety of skill sets spanning across the team. Besides using the above test techniques,developers can also use code review to learn the code base and new techniques and technologies to help grow their skill set. Code reviews can benefit every team regardless of their development methodology. With work being decentralized across the team, it provides huge benefits for the agile teams. Code review helps in facilitating knowledge sharing not only across the team but also the code base.

Conclusion : For an agile project, a number of tests may confirm that your system is working as per expectations. These are value-driven tests that also focus on value creation. Exploratory testing, on the other hand, is driven by risk and focuses on unexpected behaviors. Though the outcomes are complementary, the goals tend to be conflicting and this is something that needs to be recognized. This is why it is important to automate agile testing.