The world is currently undergoing a digital transformation, and people want app experiences that are high-quality and responsive. As a result, today’s emphasis on the entire effectiveness and quality of applications is crucial. There are numerous benefits to investing in automation testing from a technical perspective.
Before automating tests and putting them into Agile and DevOps systems, it’s critical to understand some of the intended outcomes and advantages. The organization likes automation because it offers a level of consistency in the testing process, whereas manual testing has drawbacks.
When new tests are automated, they can be combined into a regression test to thoroughly check the application in comparison to all predetermined standards. The tests can be conducted faster, more frequently, and for less money because they are automated.
This article will examine test automation in Agile and DevOps environments. We will begin by defining Agile and DevOps, then go on to the role of test automation in Agile and DevOps and some advice for successful test automation in Agile.
Agile Testing
Agile testing is a way of application testing that conforms to the agile development approach. The agile methodology divides testing into multiple phases to manage it. Teams cycle through a process of planning, carrying out, and assessing once the job starts. Agile testing is vital in both continuous integration and continuous delivery.
It also requires continuous improvement at every stage and ongoing collaboration with stakeholders. Agile enables application testing earlier in the SDLC process because it involves multiple iterations. This is how the team finds more bugs right away and immediately gets rid of them. Agile teams can later get user feedback and continuously enhance the application.
DevOps
DevOps combines development and operations. It is an application development approach that makes it possible for organizations to provide applications and services more quickly than those that rely on more traditional infrastructure management and application development procedures.
DevOps enables organizations to provide quality at a rapid pace while providing improved user experiences, allowing them to compete more successfully in the market.
All specialists participate in a single flow while using DevOps, which encourages everyone to contribute to the process. As a result, the stakeholders must coordinate more closely within the various application development processes like development, QA, and Operations.
Testing before agile and DevOps methodologies
Application development frequently used the Waterfall Model before adopting Agile and DevOps methodologies. Developers use this phase-based approach, where each stage must be finished before moving on to the next.
In the waterfall model, testing occurs at the end of the process of software development. This led to several things that could be improved, like going back through each line of code individually and looking for faults or defects necessitating repeating the entire procedure. This process also needs to be done even if the requirements change slightly. The release gets delayed as a result of additional development and testing. This approach to application testing at the end of the SDLC is no longer valid.
The ongoing Agile and DevOps methodology increases the whole process’s flexibility. These two adaptable approaches helped give organizations more adaptability, quicker execution, and improved teamwork. However, doing it without automation is difficult.
It can be difficult and risky to introduce manual testing into a fast-paced Agile and DevOps environment. This could slow down testing, create more bottlenecks, and cost more time and money to resolve. Updates to the app’s features happen frequently.
The ideal strategy for handling testing such a wide range of apps is to adopt a well-integrated and reliable test automation solution. To keep up with their rapid pace, Agile and DevOps primarily concentrate on automated testing. These techniques assist organizations in releasing high-quality applications that satisfy end-user needs.
The function of automation testing in Agile and DevOps
Rapid coding and testing are both necessary for the delivery of an application quickly. Every time a new feature or update is added to a program, it is crucial to make sure that every user can use it without any problems. If not, customers may quickly switch to a competitor and leave bad comments, which could damage the application’s reputation.
Thus, it is essential to thoroughly test each feature and update it to guarantee flawless operation. It’s not possible to complete a complicated, feature-rich program manually within the time constraints required. Thus automation is the only option.
While using Agile, QAs can design test cases that will execute automatically each time new code for a certain application is uploaded to the code repository. In DevOps, this procedure is known as continuous testing and it guarantees that new code is error-free before it enters the production environment.
Also, it has been noted that in agile environments, the number of tests keeps rising dramatically with each iteration, and an automation tool would effectively handle it and guarantee a quick time to market. Additionally, under Agile, testers can automate functional and regression tests to guarantee that the application runs speedily and precisely following the specifications.
The key to efficient Agile and DevOps success is automation. Without automation testing, it is impossible to achieve the necessary speed for development to be truly “agile.” To achieve speed and agility in DevOps, it is crucial to automate all testing processes and set them up to execute automatically after deployment in the QA Environment. Automation streamlines the development and testing process, improves applications, and maintains user satisfaction.
Tips for implementing test automation successfully in Agile and DevOps contexts
The capacity of automated testing to perform repetitive tasks rapidly, frequently, and accurately is one of its main advantages. Teams can be sure they are delivering an application that meets the needs and expectations of their users by combining the advantages and flexibility of agile and DevOps.
Even for QA testers who have extensive experience, maximizing automated testing can be challenging. Thus, the following advice will assist the development team in effectively setting up and utilizing the advantages of automated testing inside Agile and DevOps.
Put parallel testing into practice
The test automation teams may fail to meet the quality standards as a result of the agile methodology’s frequent releases through numerous revisions. Doing testing in parallel with development cycles makes it easier to find errors, address problems, and test solutions. This will be a productive strategy to boost output and prevent last-minute surprises.
Use the proper automation tool
Test automation tools are widely accessible, ranging from free and open to fee-based and customized. To successfully automate tests in an agile environment, it is crucial to choose and invest in the correct automation tool by evaluating its capabilities and compliance with the necessary features or standards.
The ability of the chosen automation tool to sustain DevOps and agile tool integration must be taken into account, along with factors like purchase and support costs, the technical expertise required to use the tool, etc.
Keep an eye on the working environments
A method for developing an application includes a variety of stages, such as network, back-end to front-end system design, etc. As a result, it is essential to regularly monitor the development environment to comprehend its operation and how it relates to the creation of applications. This will make it easier to concentrate on the application’s quality rather than trying to identify issues using several data sets.
Implement quality tests
Another important factor to make test automation successful in agile and DevOps environments are developing robust tests. This will enable the developers to create quality scripts that can easily integrate with the regression testing. The test scripts should be flexible to fulfill the regression testing requirements by meeting the criterion of accuracy, portability, integrity, portability, performance, etc.
Bring in professionals with the necessary expertise
Test automation engineers must have great time management abilities to successfully plan their work, complete all assignments on time, and meet task deadlines when working in the fast-paced settings of Agile and DevOps. Also, they should be skilled at reporting and communicating so that the team as a whole can engage effectively and react quickly to changes and updates.
For both Agile and DevOps engineers, having coding skills, especially an in-depth understanding of languages like Java, JavaScript, Python, and others, is essential since it enables efficient script writing, execution, and support.
Create automated test scripts by being aware of the application processes and functions.
It’s critical to comprehend the application flow and function to automate in Agile and DevOps contexts. Agile sprints divide a large, complex application development process into more manageable goals. Because of this, it’s crucial to concentrate on creating automated test scripts for the appropriate scenarios, which will provide accurate feedback, cut down on time, and save expensive reworks in the future.
Agile application testing with automation using LambdaTest
Because the functionality of the application can be developed and tested quickly in an agile setting, test automation gives quality at speed within sprints.
Users frequently access the application using a wide variety of devices, browsers, and operating systems. To have a chance of success, QA must require comprehensive testing of the application, ensuring that it performs flawlessly on all of these combinations, or as many as is practical.
Agile teams are dispersed geographically, making it expensive to set up an infrastructure with a variety of real devices, browsers, and operating systems to perform their tests across. Nonetheless, a cloud-based test automation platform enables teams to access the infrastructure and work together to reach the ultimate objective of providing a high-quality application.
One such cloud-based platform is LambdaTest, which offers a cloud of more than 3000 real devices, browsers, and operating systems that are optimized for automation testing in Agile. This platform provides cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility. Agile implements automation testing using various tools and frameworks, including Selenium and Cypress. The LambdaTest real device cloud makes it possible to instantly and easily parallelize the execution of Selenium and Cypress tests.
Code transitions from development to testing and deployment are automated by CI/CD. By integrating LambdaTest with the most well-liked CI/CD solutions, such as Jenkins, Travis CI, TeamCity, Bamboo, CircleCI, Azure Pipelines, etc., developers and testers may carry out testing procedures that follow DevOps.
The performance of each test that runs on the LambdaTest cloud and each application is tracked in real situations. This contains functions like geolocation testing, IP localization, low power, inconsistent network connectivity, and numerous other features. This guarantees that every single test will produce entirely accurate findings.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that users want applications to be faultless, bug-free, and consistently high-functioning. As a result, the Agile and DevOps methodologies encourage the team to finish testing, coding, and refinement tasks more quickly until the program is fit for purpose. They make an effort to deliver apps quickly, mainly to fulfill user expectations. All of this can only be done using automation testing. To support agile testing, the QA team can create test cases that will run automatically as new components are added to or changed in the code base.