Quality assurance is a universal concern, especially when it comes to application development. Enterprise applications are faster and more reliable than ever before. However, in addition to performance, application developers also must consider data security, regulatory compliance and cost-effectiveness, among other things. Organizations are embracing quality engineering (QE) as a foundation to create a software quality culture to address these challenges. Creating a quality engineering or TestOps environment is not simple, especially when QE departments must test for hundreds of applications across multiple enterprise environments. Whether it is a solution provider or a multinational corporation, applications often need to be tested across platforms, industries and geographies.
TestOps encompasses a broader concept than just QE. With TestOps, there are testers and engineers using automated and manual testing to validate software for flawless application performance. In enterprise DevOps, the TestOps team serves as the bridge between development and deployment since they have a good understanding of the applications and a better perspective on the context and variables that can affect performance.
Continuous testing is an integral part of any software development cycle. Quality engineers must be brought in early as part of Agile development to keep development on track and head off any problems that could escalate or become harder to resolve later. In Agile, testing becomes more crucial and frequent to ensure flawless performance.
It pays to think horizontally when setting up a TestOps approach. For example, testing should be performed across different vertical environments such as media, manufacturing and finance. The goal is to create a test environment that can accommodate various industries.
TestOps Across Environments
In the age of SaaS and universal data access, it is essential to test across multiple platforms. In addition to ensuring enterprise performance, mobile web and remote data access must be tested. For streaming services, it is vital to test across mobile platforms, over-the-top (OTT) platforms such as Roku, Apple TV, Android TV and Fire TV, and even gaming consoles like PlayStation and Xbox.
When shipping software updates, geography matters (especially when shipping across time zones), as one may never know when the software will be used or have control over the environment where they plan to use it.
For instance, consider the challenges a leading mortgage lender faced with mobile application testing and how geography was a factor. First, Google Analytics was used to assess specific device and user requirements and ascertain performance in various parts of the United States since different regions use different carriers. Testing was then done across mobile platforms such as iOS, Android and combinations and across carriers since most banking and mortgage applications required one-time passwords (OTPs) and SMS-related capabilities. Further tests were implemented for new identity authentication strategies such as biometrics and facial recognition. Finally, performance testing by geography was conducted to determine whether a new feature or version would create issues.
Testing for Geographies and Regional Compliance
Localization testing is important since every region and every country has unique compliance issues and laws. To ensure proper localization, it is essential to perform complete testing, including lower environments and production systems.
In any TestOps environment, the philosophy of continuous testing should already be part of the design environment, including understanding the nuances of production. Release readiness does not mean there are only a few known bugs in certain regions. It means the application has been tested for compliance in every geography where it could possibly be utilized.
Testing Across Industries
Testing application performance in specific industry settings brings along its own set of unique challenges. In manufacturing, for example, each sensor in an IoT device must be modeled against a conformance specification to determine if it can be automated using simulations. In media, one needs to test for different platforms, content management systems and business workflows.
To accelerate time to market, one would want to support a dual-shift development lifecycle to gauge the consumer experience and get continuous feedback and also need a test environment with multiple automation tools such as Selenium, Appium, Cypress, Tricentis, UiPath, Test Complete and Winium.
Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a larger role in testing, shortening time to market, and ensuring superior quality software. AI-driven test tools are optimized for domain-specific applications, such as testing for industries like media, manufacturing and fintech. AI can fill in the gaps to achieve optimization and offer a quicker turnaround with limited manual intervention.
Any organization cultivating a TestOps culture needs to have specific technologies and tools in place. When assessing your testing technology stack, it is important to create an end-to-end testing ecosystem. This means the environments must be inclusive and capable of incorporating testing for unique applications, environments and scenarios. To support the needs of today’s Agile application development environment, one must plan for an agile testing infrastructure to keep development on track.