Where Does QA and Test Automation Fit with DevOps?
Let’s have a look at what DevOps is…
- DevOps is the Next Generation of Agile.
- DevOps is basically a combination of two words. Development and Operation. It is a culture that promotes collaboration between software development (Dev) and IT operations to deploy code to production faster with high software quality aimed at delivering new features and improvements, bug fixes, and updates frequently in close alignment with business objectives.
Where exactly does QA and Test Automation fit with DevOps?
- In the DevOps scenario, QA integrates into the testing and development process and takes the collaborative approach. Quality is ensured throughout the testing and delivery cycle and both the testing and development teams are responsible for it.
DevOps life cycle
DevOps consists of various stages.
- Continuous development: Involves planning and coding of the application’s functionality
- Continuous testing: The developed software is continuously testing for bugs. Automation testing tools such as Selenium, TestNG, JUnit are used for continuous testing.
- Continuous integration: The stage where the code supporting new functionality is integrated with the existing code. Since there’s Continuous development of the software the updated code needs to be integrated continuously as well as smoothly with the system to reflect the changes to end-users.
- Continuous deployment: Where the code is deployed to the production environment. We ensure that the code is correctly deployed on all the servers.
- Continuous monitoring: Which is aimed at improving the quality of software by monitoring its performance.
Continuous Testing and Test Automation in DevOps
What is Continuous Testing?
Continuous Testing requires implementing end-to-end automated testing, and it is impossible without test automation. Continuous Testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of a software delivery pipeline designed to acquire feedback on business risks immediately. While Test Automation checks user story requirements, continuous testing compass the entire DevOps process.
Test automation is the practice of using automation tools and frameworks to write test scripts that automate common testing which needs to be done to properly verify the functionality of a software application. These tests can then be run at all points in the software development pipeline.
DevOps test Automation Frameworks
There are different testing frameworks available in the market for various technologies that can be used at different stages of the SDLC process.
Frameworks allow you to write test scripts that can be written for every use case that you are deploying. There are tools and frameworks that can automate all the test steps of your entire software project.
Automation Frameworks for continuous testing
● Appium: Freely distributed, open-source mobile application UI testing framework. Supports automation tests
● Cucumber: A ruby based tool, used to write and run automated acceptance tests in simple plain English.
● JUnit: Simple Unit /regression testing framework used by java
● Test NG: Designed to cover multiple test categories like end to end, functional and integration testing
● Selenium: A customized open-source software testing framework for web applications. Reduces coding efforts, test cycle times and related costs, which improves test automation.
Selenium IDE is a full-fledged IDE for authoring tests using a test domain-specific language to write tests in many popular programming languages like Java, Python, PHP, C#, and Ruby.
References
[1]”Test automation: the secret to DevOps success — Work-Life by Atlassian”, Work-Life by Atlassian, 2020. [Online]. Available:https://www.atlassian.com/blog/devops/test-automation-secret-devops-success#:~:text=In%20true%20DevOps%20style%2C%20development,deploy%20them%20and%20test%20them
[2]”Where Does QA and Test Automation Fit in DevOps”, Testsigma Blog, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://testsigma.com/blog/where-does-qa-and-test-automation-fit-in-devops/.
[3]”Where Does QA and Test Automation Fit in DevOps”, Testsigma Blog, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://testsigma.com/blog/where-does-qa-and-test-automation-fit-in-devops/.
[4]”How Test Automation Fits With Agile & DevOps”, SmartBear.com, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://smartbear.com/blog/test-and-monitor/how-test-automation-fits-with-agile-devops/.
[5]C. Technologies, C. Technologies, V. Kovuru, C. Technologies, and C. Technologies, “4 Ways to Automate Testing in a DevOps set-up”, Software Testing Blog by Cigniti Technologies, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.cigniti.com/blog/4-ways-to-automate-testing-in-devops-set-up/.
[6]”Best Automation Tools for DevOps”, XenonStack, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.xenonstack.com/blog/automation-tools-for-devops/.
About the Author
Ayesha Panchavi works as a Trainee- Quality Assurance Engineer at 99X Technology.