All businesses undergo constant change with customer demand and expectations always scaling up. In response, agility is the key to success for an enterprise that builds software of any type. That’s why software industry needs to embrace agile processes for software delivery. DevOps is an innovative approach for agility, accepted as an efficient way to handle constant change.
In DevOps, continuous integration and continuous delivery are two key components that decide the success rate of any software. Continuous integration is the process by which developers frequently merge code changes into a central repository where automated builds and tests run. As an extension of continuous integration, continuous delivery is the process by which the system automatically deploys all code changes to a testing or production environment.
Testing all complex features in applications, software products, or services is necessary to ensure high software quality. That’s where continuous testing plays the lead role in enabling continuous delivery and ultimately making DevOps a success.
Why Should You Embrace Continuous Testing?
Continuous testing executes tests at regular intervals and whenever there is a code change. These tests drive faster feedback on all recent changes pushed to the code repository. The prime intent is to reduce the time taken to provide feedback to developers, mainly addressing these three factors:
- How fast a problem gets detected
- Quickly inform the development team
- Get it fixed without delays
See How Continuous Testing Improves DevOps
Speed and Quality
As DevOps aims to deliver quality at speed through flexible and agile delivery models, continuous testing helps identify bugs sooner than later to save valuable time and resources. By doing so, continuous testing immensely helps enterprises save big on rollbacks.
Evaluates Quality at Each Step
In continuous testing, testing as close to the build is the best practice. Doing so ensures that quality check and error elimination happens at each step. It helps avoid wasting developer resources, time, and related risks in DevOps. Continuous testing also evaluates the code validity at each stage.
Connects development, testing, and operations teams
The continuous testing approach effectively merges traditionally siloed teams to a common platform. It is at the forefront in enabling seamless collaboration between developers, QA, and the Operations team. And, as a code is tested thoroughly and repeatedly, continuous testing enables the development teams to convey assured results at speed.
Minimal Failure
In continuous testing, test execution happens right from the earliest of a testing process and utilizes automation benefits to the fullest and for multiple times. By doing so, it helps in the initial authorization and identification of bugs in addition to improving test coverage. Ultimately, it ensures minimal failure rates during new releases.
Quick Time-to-market
With a continuous feedback mechanism, continuous testing accelerates time-to-market. Quick time-to-market is vital as regular software updating is the backbone to meeting end-user requirements.
Continuous Testing is DevOps’ Success Code
Today, continuous testing is an integral part of DevOps as it plays a vital role in the CI/CD pipeline. When you implement one, go for an all-in-one environment as it provides software engineers with the flexibility to choose their desired programming languages, frameworks, and tools for testing.
Avo’s automated solutions for end-to-end, continuous testing helps you minimize errors and achieve continuity. It also elevates your DevOps outcomes by assuring quality and testing speed.