Impact of QAOps on Software Quality

1. Impact of QAOps on Software Quality For over 2 decades, Mindfire has partnered with global companies across every major industry to make stellar software products. With its highly adept team of 650 + people passionate about technology, Mindfire effortlessly connects the dots between people, technology, products, and business.

2. Introduction Software quality plays a vital part in the delivery of a software product. Wouldn’t it be conceivable for enterprises to bring software quality assurance (QA) and software operations together as a business practice if it’s viable to bring software development and software operations together? This introduces the QAOps framework, a new flavor of DevOps. DevOps is a set of practices and tools of combining software development and IT Operations which aims to improve the development life cycle and software quality. The process of incorporating quality assurance (QA) into the CI/CD workflow is known as QAOps. Thus, rather than being a separate process, software testing is incorporated into the CI/CD pipeline. It necessitates strong collaboration between the QA team, development and operational teams.

3. Unlike DevOps, QAOps highlights the difficulties faced by QA engineers and emphasizes the significance of aligning QA testing with the DevOps workflow. The testing engineers have found QAOps to be quite helpful in keeping up with the continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) process. Before one can grasp the concept of QAOps, one must first comprehend the concepts of continuous integration and continuous delivery. So, what exactly is CI/CD? Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)? CI/CD is a part of the DevOps approach. Once an application is constructed and released in its initial version, it may be tested to see how well it functions. After the initial release, there are a few (or a lot of) things that should be improved. Once they are comprehended, changes are implemented and published in the next release.

4. Continuous integration is the process of merging changes into the application’s main branch as soon as they are made. After they’ve been implemented, one may perform automated testing to ensure that they’re working properly. When it’s being done this way, businesses won’t have to wait for the release date to incorporate the changes. They can quickly update the changes. The next phase in continuous integration is continuous delivery. It is the practice of providing updates to clients at regular periods in order to increase user satisfaction. Life Cycle of QAOps Framework Setting up the correct platform with the tools on the CI/CD pipeline to ensure that freshly created code is tested and verified is what QAOps is all about. There are three primary phases i.e. Trigger, Execute & Report in the QAOps process.

5. 1. Trigger When an application feature update is performed in the CI/CD pipeline, one of the most critical components of QA testing is to trigger the appropriate tests. The tests should only be triggered when there are changes to the functionality. Otherwise, valuable time will be wasted testing undesirable regions of the application (where no changes have been made) or crucial areas may be overlooked. In other words, the more tests one has, the longer it takes to run them and transmit the findings. To bring this scenario back into balance, the company must map the tests to the features that are being developed. 2. Execute Execution is the next phase in the QAOps process. Following the triggering phase, several tests will be run on the functionality. As previously stated, it is critical that the tests run in parallel to save time and get faster results. To achieve parallel testing, ensure that your organization has the infrastructure in place to scale and disperse loads as needed. Also, to minimize any testing glitches during the QAOps life cycle, ensure that continuous testing in a DevOps environment is highly accessible.

6. 3. Reporting The reporting procedure begins when the tests have been triggered and run. The results of the tests are displayed in the reporting section. To make the QAOps process as efficient as possible, the reporting module must be well designed. A good reporting module should be able to deliver both short summary information and extensive information. This will be beneficial to anyone looking at the reports. The reporting module should also be able to record the findings of prior tests so that stakeholders can compare them. When reports are needed, they should be conveniently accessible and available on demand. Why QAOps matters and how does it differ from organization to organization? ● QAOps follows the DevOps approach, which makes the entire software development cycle smoother and faster. You’ll have more time to work on new features and upgrades if your software development cycles are shorter.

7. ● When you implement QAOps, the development and operations teams have a comprehensive perspective of the testing process and the product as a whole. This will allow them to resolve issues more quickly and deploy the product sooner. ● Because testing occurs on a continual basis, QAOps keeps the testing team engaged. It saves the QA team the time of having to wait until the application is ready for another round of testing. And because the QA staff isn’t sitting idle, their morale should improve. ● Collaborating with diverse teams allows everyone to get knowledge and expertise about how different teams work. It also allows them to improve their skills in a variety of areas. ● Your customers will have a better experience using your product since QAOps incorporates continuous testing. They will be significantly happier than they would have been otherwise if you provide them with a greater degree of quality and reliability.

8. ● QAOps entails testing the product or a specific section of the product as soon as the update is applied, avoiding the need for the QA team to wait for a new build. This aids the QA team in identifying issues early, and resolving these flaws sooner can avoid further issues from occurring as a result of these bugs. Implementation of QAOps in Testing Models The QAOps approach promises to be crucial in improving most testing models in the field of software testing. Let’s have a look at some of the many testing procedures that can benefit greatly from the use of QAOps. Regression Testing When businesses need to upgrade the current framework and re- release a product after it has already been built and launched, regression testing comes in helpful. In this paradigm, QA analysts are responsible for determining if the newly necessary upgrades result in any significant changes to the product. Example: Regression testing of past fixes: To check previously fixed problems to determine whether they have reappeared.

9. Automation Testing Automation testing is a type of software testing that compares actual results to projected results. Automated testing automates the repetitive components of testing, allowing QA analysts to assess test outcomes and advise on succeeding development phases based on the data generated by these tests. This testing is critical in a QAOps setting because it shortens the quality feedback loop. Benefits of automated testing include: · Shorter development cycles and frequent releases. · Increased accuracy of the testing process. · Higher application quality and performance. However, before constructing an automated framework, QA experts must thoroughly examine the product to better grasp its goals, specifications, and functioning.

10. Example: Following this study, QA teams may determine which tests should be automated first, based on the stage of the product they are working on. Automated tests are then matched to the product’s goals, reducing time and increasing the relevance of testing results. Parallel Testing Parallel testing is used to ensure that all of the product’s components are working properly. As a result, the application undergoes many automated tests at the same time, which results in reduced testing costs and time. Inside a certain timeframe, the QAOps framework may expedite testing within the same delivery process. Example: Legacy data is an integral aspect of any organization’s transition from an old system to a new system. It takes a long time to transfer this information. Parallel testing is used in software testing to validate the interoperability of a newly built system with an existing system.

11. Functional Exploratory Testing Functional Exploratory Testing is used to ensure that the product’s end result is as expected. The entire testing procedure is dependent on the test engineers’ experience here, since they must conceive of potential system flaws and repair them before the release. This procedure aids in the testing of critical applications, and the operation can be better executed with the help of the QAOps team. Example: Assume someone is driving a car to a new spot in a new region without a map. To get there, the person driving the car will use a variety of typical methods, including obtaining a map of the immediate area. To locate the place, they must go in a random direction. Exploratory testing may be thought of in the same way.

12. Scalability Testing After the product launch, test scalability enters the picture. This non-functional test is conducted based on the product’s performance with consumers. Scalability testing verifies how well the program operates under various loads. In this scenario, consumer input is critical in determining what modifications need to be done in order to increase performance even further. Example: A database application that provides decent response time for 10 users, for example, should be expandable to 100 users if necessary. Best Practices of QAOps Process ● One of the original goals of QAOps was to guarantee that new products were of higher quality. In comparison to traditional software testing approaches, when the QAOps procedures are performed along the software delivery pipeline, any product may be anticipated to maintain quality requirements.

13. ● The QAOps method needs testing and reporting on the end product, which allows a better knowledge of the entire process for the development and operation teams. This accelerates issue fixes early on without sacrificing time or testing expenses later on. ● The operation team avoids any delays by having the QAOps operations run continually. This allows the team to test new apps without being slowed down. ● As a result of QAOps testing, the odds of a better customer experience grow since the product’s quality and performance are improved. After all, software businesses want to have satisfied consumers. Key benefits of Automation testing for a successful launch ●Cost-effective Even though automated testing requires a greater initial expenditure, it saves the organization a significant amount of money in the long run. It’s primarily due to a decrease in the amount of time it takes to conduct the tests. It also adds to a far higher level of job quality because there are no dangers of human error or negligence.

14. ●Improved Results Because automated testing saves so much time, especially when dealing with complicated and massive systems. This enables testing to be repeated, resulting in better and faster results with substantially less work and time invested. ●Reusability Automated test cases are completely reusable, thus they may be used to test any component of the code, depending on its importance, and in a variety of ways. ●High-quality and high-performance apps One can run hundreds of automated test cases at once using automated testing, allowing you to swiftly test your app across several platforms and devices. ●Immediate Response With fast test execution, developers receive testing information in real time, allowing them to respond quickly if a problem arises. ●Tests that are more precise When you implement test automation, you’re more likely to have error-free releases. . Automated testing is more accurate than manual testing because it requires less human interaction.

15. Conclusion In the software development sector, using QAOps might offer your company a leg up on the competition. The rise of QAOps highlights the issue that quality is frequently overlooked in software development. Any successful, long- term delivery model requires quality assurance analysts and test engineers. QAOps represents a promising next step in software development — one that emphasizes speed without compromising quality. If you are looking for custom software development and testing services, we can be your partner of choice. Mindfire Solutions has a team of highly skilled 650+ certified software development and testing professionals, who have been serving global clients for over 20+ years.

16. Thanks You Content Source: Medium Contented by: Mindfire Solutions