Key takeaways
- What is continuous testing DevOps?
- How is continuous testing a different type of testing?
- What are the 8 characteristics of a successful continuous testing strategy?
- What are the DevOps tools for continuous testing?
You must have heard of quality assurance (QA), manual testing, and automatic testing. Right? But only a few of you are probably familiar with “continuous testing”. It also serves the same purpose, but in a different way. In today’s blog, we will discuss what is continuous testing and how it’s different from other testing. We will also list the top 8 characteristics of a successful continuous testing strategy. So, without further ado, let’s start.
- How do you perform continuous testing?
- What does continuous testing mean?
- What is continuous testing in DevOps?
- What are some important concepts of continuous testing?
What is Continuous Testing?
Continuous testing just serves the same purpose as served by other testing processes. In simple terms, it is a software testing that involves automatic testing of quality at every stage of the software delivery process. Its end goal is to test early, test often, and focus on continuous quality and improvements. The process of continuous testing involves stakeholders like a developer, DevOps, and QA.
How Is Continuous Testing different from other testing?
As you all know that earlier, every software traveled from one team to another for testing. Hence, this old way of testing came to be less time-effective and hand-off centric. Apart from this, due to manual testing, the QA team required more time for their job. However, today, the above scenario is not acceptable. Everything is moving fast. Every business wants quick delivery of its software to its end-users. The reason is simple; a newer software offers great revenue and is easier to promote. The sole condition: software must be new.
Hence, it raised the requirement for an advanced testing technique. And this is how continuous testing evolved. Here, “continuous” means “undisrupted testing continually“. In this, a software/product continuously moves from development to testing and then finally to deployment. A major advantage of this continuous testing is that the code is continuously refined, delivered, assessed and deployed. Hence, in this way, continuous testing differs from others.
8 Characteristics of A Continuous Testing Strategy
Make sure that your modern continuous testing manifesto includes the following 8 characteristics:
1. Modular Testing
Always begin with small and manageable chunks. That is, aim for a modular system/testing.
2. Right Size your Approach
A wise tester said, “good processes don’t test everything”. Hence, have the right size balanced approach towards testing.
3. Measure to Improve
Measurements and improvements go hand-in-hand. If you aren’t able to measure results, you won’t be able to improve, which is the need of the hour.
4. Shift Left
According to experts, the earlier you start with the testing process, the higher are the chances to get the issues fixed.
5. Unit Test
This is what, without which, you can’t proceed. Fast feedback along with a super-specific error reporting system controls your success.
6. Version Control
Always keep your tests close to your developer’s work and create a record of tests.
7. Continuous Integration
Continuous integration promotes quality. Hence, create a safety valve for quality as fast as possible.
8. Pluggable
That said, businesses are running briskly. Therefore, integrating QA with the development toolkit helps in maintaining the stride with the development process.
Major Continuous Testing Tools
The following is the list of the major continuous testing tools:
- Query Surge
- Jenkins
- Travis
- Selenium
- Conclusion
Hence, continuous testing is simply: testing early, testing often, and automating. It delivers actionable feedback according to the stage of the delivery pipeline. Plus, it improves the code quality. So as a business owner, Continuous Testing is what you should employ today. For this, the above tools are the best ones. If you have any other questions, please list them in the comments section below.
Also Read: 4 Benefits Of Continuous Testing In DevOps
