DevOps Test Strategy - Best Practices, Tools, and Long-Term Benefits

DevOps is a software lifecycle management model. In today’s competitive software development market, DevOps is a much-needed saving grace. It enables seamless collaboration and communication between development and operations teams. These teams are responsible for achieving one goal: consistent and repetitive delivery of high-quality software and relevant updates to satisfy evolving customer needs. They are the ultimate duo, driving organizational growth by efficiently accomplishing tasks.

As a result, your DevOps test strategy should be aligned with long-term goals and the requirements provided by the client.

Looking At Traditional Testing

Testing software isn’t relatively new. However, traditional testing methodologies were vastly different from how things are done today. The textbook waterfall methodology was employed, and software testing was carried out manually, which was time-consuming.

To sum it up:

• From the entire SDLC, it spanned only one phase.

• It was issued after the software was finished being developed.

• It was highly prone to errors as it was conducted manually.

• It was time-consuming and inefficient.

Let’s look into some modern testing methods and best practices.

Best Practices

1. Leverage Test Automation

   Because developers frequently merge code to a central repository, it updates continuously through CI or continuous integration. This could lead to a risk of errors in unit, functional, acceptance, and integration tests. To get faster and earlier feedback, you can automate these tests.

   What should effective automation include?

   Simple. There should be quality test data. Identified test cases deemed good for the automation, parallel-run tests for improved automation speed and continuous revision of the testing plan.

2. Identify Test Automation Engineers

   Your test automation engineer could be a former manual tester who has adapted to writing automation scripts or a software developer trained for the task. While they are responsible for developing the overall automation strategy for the entire organization, they should also work on identifying test scenarios for automation, pick a framework to create automation scripts, and find the best possible tool for the testing process. A typical automation engineer is responsible for taking ownership of executing automated tests. They should also clean up existing test cases by implementing any new changes introduced to the system.

3. Selecting the Right Automation Tools

   Selecting the right automation tools is in itself a best practice.

   The first consideration when selecting a test automation tool is if your team has the necessary knowledge and experience to use it. For instance, using open-source testing tools requires some programming knowledge. What about your test engineers? Do you think they are well-equipped to handle a particular tool? You can consider your engineers’ preferences as well.

   Some tools that should make your list are:

Selenium

This open-source tool is mostly used to automate web application testing. It offers a variety of software for various testing requirements. In addition, there are several programming languages available for creating Selenium scripts.

JMeter

JMeter is an open-source performance and load testing software built on the Java platform. It can be used to test various kinds of protocols. JMeter is easy to use but has limited functionality compared to the rest of the tools.

Katalon Studio

This tool includes free and paid versions, is considered among the greatest automated testing software, and is very user-friendly. It can be applied to automated online, desktop, mobile, and API testing. It works on numerous platforms and is often the go-to automation tool for DevOps.

Long-Term Benefits of DevOps

With DevOps, the chances of product failure are greatly reduced. It offers you improved flexibility and support and a faster time to market. Watch as your ROI increases, saving your time and resources. Growing your revenue stream down the road is only one benefit of DevOps implementation and usage. Increased business velocity and competitive advantage are some others, among many.