This blog will discuss why continuous testing is essential for product development, why DevOps alone may not be enough, and how DevTestOps can help achieve faster delivery with better quality products.
Author – Abhi Bisen
Abhi works as Vice President for Digital Testing service in GlobalStep UK office and manages testing projects on different business domains.
The world of software development has seen a significant shift in the last few years, focusing on delivering faster and better-quality products to customers. Agile methodologies and DevOps have become the norm, and the integration of testing into the development lifecycle has become critical.
This blog will discuss why continuous testing is essential for product development, why DevOps alone may not be enough, and how DevTestOps can help achieve faster delivery with better quality products.
The Need for Faster Delivery
Software demand has been growing exponentially, not just in technological companies but in core industries too. Organizations must adopt and implement changes early to provide the best customer experience. This has resulted in the need for faster delivery. Organizations that cannot keep up with this demand, risk being left behind in the market. To manage these challenges, the software industry has had to adapt to changes at a pace, and in the last two decades, the software development process has evolved drastically.
Agile Methodologies and DevOps
Agile methodologies have brought new methods that have quickly become the norm and enabled organizations to achieve faster releases. Then in DevOps, we have seen how Development and Operations teams can work together using the CI-CD pipeline, bringing in automation test suites at the end of this process, using the power of tools such as Selenium. DevOps has significantly benefited the development life cycle and reduced the time to ship products. Fundamentally, Automation enables testing to be completed along with development, meaning when development is finished, testing is also completed, and the product is ready to be shipped.
The Limitations of DevOps
So, can we get all the benefits of DevOps? Can we make quicker delivery? Unfortunately, the answer is no. In DevOps, testing happens at a particular life cycle stage, which means quality and testing take a back seat. If you analyze DevOps, testing was only done once the build was delivered, probably Functional testing. This means the test team is not involved in the other development phases. Also, different types of testing are not given the required attention. For example, unit testing, requirement analysis, performance testing, integration testing, security testing, etc.
To understand the issue better, let’s assume a day in a life in DevOps: Developers work closely with the Operations team and create a solution assuming it will meet all the requirements. Then QA raises some complex defects at the absolute end of the development cycle, e.g. functional, performance or security issues that need architecture-level or significant code changes. These defects/issues will take a long time to fix, resulting in delayed deployment. Delayed deployment then directly impacts time to market and reduces the benefits DevOps can bring.
The Solution: DevTestOps
To avoid these situations, it was necessary to bring a Test team to test the application throughout the development life cycle, creating DevTestOps. DevTestOps resolves the issue by getting the testing team into all the development phases. It enables continuous testing throughout requirement gathering, development, integration, and deployment. All three teams, Development, Operations, and Testing, work in tandem to avoid defects in the later stages of the development lifecycle.
At GlobalStep, we have implemented the best possible DevTestOps approaches by aligning shift-left and shift-right with the CI-CD pipeline. We work with our clients to embed continuous testing throughout the software development lifecycle, from requirement gathering to deployment, enabling them to identify defects early and avoid costly delays. Our experienced team of testers works closely with development and operations teams to create an end-to-end team that takes ownership of quality. We encourage all team members to adopt the principle that “Quality is owned by every individual in the system, not just the test team.”
DevTestOps is critical for any organization that wants to achieve faster delivery, improve quality, and enhance customer satisfaction.
Our team at GlobalStep is dedicated to helping our clients achieve these goals by providing best-in-class DevTestOps services that are tailored to their unique needs. If you’re looking to adopt DevTestOps and want to learn more about how we can help, please reach out to us.
We’d be delighted to assist you in solving your challenges concerning DevTestOps.
Contact us today : https://globalstepdigital.com/
