DevOps can be said as an integrated/ compound system of development and operations. The term “DevOps” is derived from the letters of the words “DEVelopment” and “OPerationS”. DevOps Testing is a perfectly orchestrated collaboration between the Development and Operations teams.
Apart from the mainstream aspects of development and operations, the system of DevOps Testing also provides other crucial aspects such as quality engineering and security. Primarily, it smoothens the coordination as well as collaboration among the teams. This results in the preparation of better quality products.
Devops Lifecycle :
The Planning Phase
The first phase/segment of any given DevOps lifecycle is the planning phase. In this phase, all the teams would come together and decide on an approximate timeline to create the product. Other aspects such as when the product can tentatively be launched and the potential success rate of the product will be discussed as well.
Automation Testing
In simple terms, automation testing in the DevOps tools/ culture is deployed to reduce the percentile of human intervention to a great extent. This phase includes the verification of the product’s overall functionality. The functionality test is carried on by the usage of automation frameworks along with DevOps testing tools. It comes in handy in the verification of the overall application functionality.
Deployment Automation
This phase usually follows after checking the functionality and strength of security. In this phase, you will trial-run the deployment phase. This will give you clarity on the usability and the readiness of the app to be launched in the public. Initially, the deployment trial run was done manually.
Testing Types in DevOps :
There are various testing types in DevOps.
Chain Test :
The Chain Test helps confirm that all the apps on the chain are working well together.
This is sometimes also called the Integration Test.
Component Test :
Big applications are built on different components and the Component Test tests all of them.
Functional Acceptance Test :
This test helps verify if the happy path of the app is working according to the functional requirements. The error and alternate paths need to be tested as well.
Integration Test :
It works similarly to the Component Test but while the Component Test works on one component at a time, this can work on multiple components simultaneously.
Performance Stress Test :
This test checks if the system can handle the request on time by a set number of users, background workload, and transactions.
Production Acceptance Test :
This test verifies if the app can work fine in the target environment.
System Test :
This test verifies if the app can fulfill the requirements.
Unit Test :
This test examines a single small object.
User Acceptance Test :
This test helps figure out if the user can use the app and whether it’s user-friendly, effortless, usable, etc.
DevOps Testing Strategy :
- Need to identify all the test cases that need to be executed for a particular build.
- The execution of all tests should be minimal yet powerful.
- The Development and QA teams need to identify all the areas that a particular build is affecting. They need to execute all the test cases related to the build.
- Coverage tools and specialized code analysis need to be configured to ensure that all of the code is covered.
- Don’t execute all regression test cases for a test pass.
- A new features testing strategy needs to be standardized while the QA creates test scripts and runs the automation tests on the builds in the interim. This process should continue until the code is stable enough and can be deployed in the Production environment.
- All the deployments need to be automated. The environments required for testing need to be formalized.
- Automation testing across different cross-platform environments should be run by QA with the help of automation techniques.
- Parallel execution of tests should be implemented to reduce the time-to-market.
- There should be an exit criterion set for each of the test cases. When the results get back to the chain, the Production can make a quicker decision.
Conclusion
With the abundant growth of DevOps Testing, it has become imperative to choose the right testing strategy to ensure organizational success. Furthermore, with the influence of DevOps in various aspects of organizational functionalities, it is important to ensure that the system makes the right impact on the teams without overstepping any boundaries. This will ensure that the implemented DevOps culture is on par with the core idea of the DevOps system in general.
