6 Reasons Why You Can’t Have DevOps Without Test Automation

We are living in a golden era where technology is at its peak. You can dream of an idea and can turn it into reality. For this, there are many organizations in the market that are there to help you. The enterprises take your idea, design a prototype on it, build it, test it, launch and relaunch it to the market. This is basically where DevOps comes into play. With DevOps, the developers and the operation team members work together as one.

While in the testing department this speeding up of processes is taken care of by automation where a computer just runs scripts without taking any tea breaks.  Automation has definitely brought a change in how testing processes and help in delivering when things went agile.

Faster delivery of software requires testers and developers to work together on feedback cycles and newer versions. We make this happen by bringing DevOps and Test automation together into one complete yet isolated environment in SDLC. But if one has to argue, can we separate these two systems and still deliver at the same rate?

I think we cannot. In this article, I present a few arguments that can establish the same fact with reason. But before that let us try to understand a little about test automation and DevOps.

What is Test Automation?

Throughout the process of the development of the software, to validate and verify the software, testers perform various tests. Some of the tests are manual while others are automated. The tests where we automate the processes are automated tests and the process is called automation testing and the ones that are performed using human intervention are manual tests and the process is called manual testing.

The following reasons show why Automation Testing is considered over Manual Testing-

1. Show fewer errors: Usually, humans are prone to errors, as the human intervention is minimal to zero in automation testing, we can avoid such errors. Tests are performed using tools that are designed for a specific task only and the use of tools shows results with nominal errors.

2. Time-saving: The use of test cases to detect bugs from the code eliminates the risks of errors as well as saves time. There are various cases that we need to carry out repetitively such as boundary cases etc. In such cases, they are of great help.

3. Reliable: When we use automation testing the reliability of the code increases exponentially as there is no human involvement.

You might think even after so many reasons why automation testing has not completely taken over manual testing? It is because machines and technology can never replace humans fully. Can anyone even imagine the user experience testing being executed without an actual human being? Of course, there are certain restrictions to automated testing as well.

What is DevOps?

The “DevOps” term was coined in the year 2009 by Patrick Debois. Not too old right! It is a combination of “Development” and “Operations”. This means that the development and the operations team will work together as one single team to plan, build, test, and deliver the product.

Source – Wikimedia

DevOps ensures that the combined work of two teams helps the organization to deliver the product faster, secure, and more reliable to their customers. Mentioned below are a few benefits of DevOps, which are :

1. With the help of DevOps, you can release the product faster and can also resolve your customer’s issues, and stay ahead of all your competitors.

2. You can automate the software release process from build to deploy using continuous integration and continuous delivery practices.

3. The DevOps culture model creates a more efficient, effective, and friendly environment to work.

Now that we are familiar with these terms let us try to understand why we cannot have DevOps without Test Automation.

1. It saves time and money

To maintain the top position in the market, the main aspects and concerns are to deliver the product as soon as possible to the client.

Now imagine the scenario where testers do not use any tool to detect the bug. At any point of time during the process of the development cycle, any bug or error can occur and can cause failure. So, one can easily understand the efforts that will be needed to discover that error. Above that, just assume the cost that will be needed to rectify the cause.

This is why we need test automation so that we can detect the bug easily and also can remove it in no time and at less cost.

2. It provides faster and consistent results 

To implement test automation we need to write the test scripts. Once that process is done, the application under test is passed through the scripts and the outcome is matched with that of the expected output. This process is less complicated and is way faster than manual testing where hours and hours can pass by and frankly all these can lead to boring, tedious, and also inaccurate work.

Consistency can be defined as the product showing expected output throughout the delivery pipeline and test automation promises that.

Another important aspect that we all should know is the use of the right tool to do all the work. Metaphorically we can state “A warrior is never complete without its weapon”

Here our weapon is the right tool for automation. We are talking about the Selenium Test Automation cloud by LambdaTest. Here are some of the features that will make you believe why it is the best:

• You can test your scripts on over 3000 plus desktop and mobile browsers.

• It is a reliable, secure, scalable, and high-performing test execution cloud where you can perform tests in parallel.

• They have the fastest test execution platform that will be a great help for the agile QA team.

• Debugging the code is fun and easy-peasy with the Selenium test automation grid.

• With the enterprise tunnel feature, you can test your locally or privately hosted web pages.

Trust me the list of the features is endless. So you can surely give this tool a chance to this tool.

3. It provides ease with regression testing

Regression testing is when we make any type of change in the code and expects the code to work in the same fashion as it was working before.

There are various aspects that are involved in this structure. We need to take care of the various platforms, devices, browsers, technical aspects, networks, in such cases test automation comes to the rescue.

Performing regression testing manually can be very dull and monotonous work. This is why it is always recommended to perform regression testing using the right tools.

4. The utilization of human resources

Testing when done by humans, there might be a chance that the repetitive test cases may cause a lack of enthusiasm among them. They may follow the path of skipping some of the test scenarios to complete the assigned task.

But this can never be the case with automated testing. All the test scenarios will be performed on time and will show accurate results as well.

Another aspect that can be considered is that highly skilled testers when leaving the organization create an empty spot and a loss to the company too. Automation testing can be performed by testers at the beginners level as well. Hence it will surely not cause any loss in the organization.

5. Area of test coverage is increased

There are various types of automation testing such as unit testing, integration testing, regression testing, smoke testing, system testing, performance testing, and many more.

As their names vary their work also varies. Automation testing covers testing of a code individually to testing that code in an integrated environment. It also tests the performance of the product in different environments and various platforms.

6. It reduces the feedback loop

Once the product is launched in the market, we all wait for the customer’s reaction and of course, wish that the feedback is positive.

But we are no saints. We always need to be optimists. We are testers and we need to look at each and every aspect. We should ask ourselves the question – “What if the feedback is negative? “

We fix the issues and try to relaunch the product. Now, what if a new issue occurs? We are stuck in the infinite feedback loop. Cost and time aspects come along with everything.

To reduce the loop, automation testing is absolutely right!

Conclusion:

In this article, we have tried to cover all the aspects of why DevOps and test automation go hand in hand. You might have come across the term QAOps which denotes how DevOps has merged with test automation. It is a combination of DevOps and QA. DevOps is used for developing the software and adding the benefits of operations in it while QA aims at delivering a high-quality project in the market.

Also do not forget to sign up for LambdaTest Selenium test automation cloud as signing in won’t cost a penny to you. They are also offering 100 minutes of automation testing for free. Hurry up before they end this offer.

Here we are at the end. We hope that you can learn something new and fresh from this article. Please comment down below to provide any type of suggestion or feedback. Thank you!