How Test Automation and DevOps Will Impact QA? [Updated]

Every business has three crucial aspects related to any project - Quality, Cost & Time.  

However, High-Quality output is the constant focus of every project, and it can only be achieved by controlling the cost and the time required to complete the project. 

To keep up with customer preferences and stay competent in the market every business requires a focused approach, which helps in continuous development and delivery/deployment of business-critical cloud-based applications across different platforms. 

Here DevOps and Automation play a key role in speeding up the process for any QA company. 

What Is Test Automation And DevOps? 

Test automation is the process of executing test cases while testing the software with the help of some automation tools to find defects/bugs. It can also be defined as the process of automating manual test case execution.  

The test automation software is responsible for entering test data into the system under test, comparing the expected and actual results and finally generating detailed test reports. In this process, generating test reports after executing the test scripts is performed automatically by automation tools. 

DevOps is an extended form of the agile development process where simultaneously development and testing of software takes place. 

The word 'DevOps' is a combination of two words – [ dev + ops = development + operations] 

Thus, DevOps promotes collaboration between Development and Operations teams to deploy code to production faster in an automated & repeatable way. 

Role Of Test Automation In Agile And DevOps  

Test automation plays a crucial role in Agile and DevOps testing services by enabling teams to deliver high-quality software at a rapid pace. In Agile, automated tests are run continuously throughout the development process to catch bugs early and provide feedback to developers. This helps to reduce the time and effort required for testing and helps to ensure that the product meets the customer's requirements.  

In DevOps, test automation is used to ensure that the code is tested, integrated, and deployed quickly and reliably. This helps to reduce the risk of errors and allows for faster and more frequent releases. Test automation also allows for more extensive testing, enabling teams to identify and fix issues before they reach production, resulting in a better user experience. 

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Impact Of DevOps On QA 

The ideology behind implementing DevOps in an automated environment is that the integration, deployment, and improvement of software applications are continuous. Sticking to such an approach creates space for simplifying and streamlining both DevOps and Software testing. A combined DevOps team is formed from multiple teams working together; thus, it has a great impact not only on QA but also on Development, Operations, production support, etc. 

What QAs Must Do To Accommodate DevOps? 

To accommodate DevOps test automation, the QA team must work closely with the development team to ensure that quality is maintained throughout the development cycle. More importantly, DevOps automation of testing reduces the holding cost. Here are some specific actions that the QA team can take: 

• QA is required to align their efforts in the DevOps cycle. 
• They must make sure that all their test cases are automated and achieve near 100% code coverage. 
• They need to make sure that their environments are standardized and the deployment on their QA boxes is automated. 
• All their pre-testing tasks, cleanups, post-testing tasks, etc. are automated and aligned with the Continuous Integration cycle. 

How Automation and DevOps work together? 

In most of the software development and releases Time and Quality matters a lot. DevOps Automated Testing helps in achieving such goals. Automation in a DevOps environment is relatively new to the industry and is growing speedily. 

The reason is; it promotes continuous integration and communication between the project application development team and the systems operations team resulting in the development of faster and better software advancing the Quality Assurance Services. 

Test automation in DevOps helps to achieve benefit of: 

• Automated Testing Saves Time 
• Automated Testing Ensures Quality 
• Automated Testing Reduces Cost 

Thus, DevOps & automation drive the best of both worlds when you need to foster sustainable innovation. 

Benefits Of Using Test Automation With DevOps 

The key to accommodating DevOps with automation is to be proactive, collaborative, and agile. The QA team should work closely with the development team to ensure that quality is maintained throughout the development cycle, and that the application is thoroughly tested and validated before each release. Some of the key benefits of pursuing such approach could be listed as: 

• Quick and fast delivery of software: Bringing automation and DevOps together allows adding quality aspects into the operations for fastened deliveries.  
• Stable operating environments: With test automation, developers and testers save time working on factors like improving the test environment and process.   
• Detecting and correcting defects early and fast: Test automation cuts off the task of manual regression which ultimately fastens the detection and correction of defects. . 
• Transparency and Collaboration across teams: With more time available, testers, developers, and business analysts get more time to collaborate on innovations. 
• Continuous development, deployment, and release: With test automation and DevOps, teams could foster the CI/CD goals with greater precision. 
• Continuous testing &Continuous monitoring: With test automation, DevOps teams could easily manage the monitoring and testing cycles.  
• Reduced time to market: The improved process causes improved development and deployments thus improving time to market and overall quality improvements.  

Learn how Agile complements DevOps 

Agile and Devops : Essentials To The Success Of IT  

Drawbacks Of Using Test Automation With DevOps 

Though the benefits of test automation with DevOps outweigh the drawbacks, it is important to consider these potential issues when implementing test automation within your DevOps processes. Organizations working on QA software testing services should weigh the benefits and costs of test automation and make an informed decision on whether it is the right approach for their specific needs. 

Many of the limits of test automation under DevOps are just limits of test automation in general: 

• Test cases and their execution are not totally proofs of correctness 
• Test suits may be incomplete 
• Requirements are often not correct and contain some errors 

These limitations are the major challenges while performing testing in DevOps organizations. Thus, it is necessary that testers must consider test limitations specific to DevOps before running any automation: 

1. Keeping focus only on automated test cases and exclude other 
2. Particularly rapid cycling 
3. Production issues and their sensitivity 
4. Totally depending on strong testing 
5. More transparency and less isolation between teams and management 

The Best Practices 

When it comes to integrating test automation into DevOps, testers often struggle fitting into a different environment. From the change of perspective to difference in the approach, there are some best practices that enable integration of intelligent test automation with DevOps.  

• Selection Of The Tools 

The selection of the right tools is vital to test automation. However, the growing need for quality assurance solutions has pushed numerous tools in the market, making the selection process more difficult.  

From DevOps regression testing to working on performance related tasks, there are certain factors that testers and developers need to keep in mind. These include making the final choice on the type of tool while learning the licensing cost and support.  

Besides, it is the capability of tools to aid CI/CD integration, availability of tutorials, test report generation, and the potential of the tool to align with your project requirements.  

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• Focus On Skills, & Not The Tools Entirely 

Even if you have the best-in-class tools available with you to integrate test automation into DevOps, missing skills in your team can be a major risk. It is necessary that your automation engineers are experts who understand the technical landscape, the tools, and are capable enough to run development in parallel.  

Moreover, the testers must have experience collaborating with developers and operations team in order to achieve maximum test coverage. Also, having an expert team could allow you to identify underlying patterns, need for tool upgrades, and can bring essential skills to automate accurately and effectively.  

• Do Not Over-automate 

Though automation helps to improve the cost and speed, over automating the operations needs excessive care. Even if there are benefits surrounding test automation, linking too many tools could cause unwanted output affecting your entire DevOps process.  

Besides, it is crucial that testers and developers must find the right amount of automation needed by working through development and testing objectives. At times, it may appear to be a very fascinating option to use the full potential of a DevOps or Automation tool, you must always have your primary and essential needs in mind when planning the process.  

• Test Automation Needs Manual Testing Too 

While test automation could allow you to save the effort, the testers and developers must understand the importance of utilizing manual testing. These could involve circumstances like registering for an application where automation could not identify issues that a manual tester could easily locate. Besides, the user acceptance testing or usability testing also need access to manual testing to ensure optimum results.  

• Taking The Right Decision 

When you need to fetch maximum output from your automation efforts, there are a few things that need you to be extra conscious of. First of all, you must resist using wrong tools and must only foster those suits the development and deployment tasks you need to automate.  

It is necessary to check that any useless tests must not be automated and only relevant application scenarios are considered. Especially, when missing on any of the scenarios could make the bugs go unnoticed and may hamper the end performance.  

Conclusion 

The best thing to do to save time and money while increasing the quality and time to market is to integrate scriptless automation with Agile and DevOps. Yes, it’s true that it takes a lot of effort to set up the entire process. But once done right, it will be an investment which no business would regret. 

Automation with DevOps is the future. Its continuous improvement model helps software development to undergo important changes from time-to-time. You just need to hold, understand and train it. 

All these concepts essentially remain the same. The core of a successful DevOps cycle is more and more automation. But as a QA you should also be able to differentiate how much automation is required for proper handling and executing the software processes. 

Good Luck! 

Need help pushing automation into an already existing DevOps model at your organization? Reach our team of test automation professionals at info@bugraptors.com