Efficiency and timely delivery are the two key factors testing teams must consider more than ever when creating an effective continuous regression testing strategy. In the modern period, where there is a continuing reduction in the time windows between application revisions and releases. It’s crucial to adopt more reliable and responsive procedures to keep up with the market’s rapid change.

Due to this, many organizations are utilizing Agile and DevOps approaches to produce faster and higher-quality releases, hence reducing their time-to-market. These two approaches help to continuously improve the application on a timely basis since they are more adaptable, responsive, flexible, and iterative in general. The finest user experience may be provided by applications when they are updated frequently and delivered more quickly.

Since testing is a crucial component of application quality, the agile and DevOps environments must include various testing techniques like unit testing, integration testing, and regression testing. Some of the main advantages that these approaches offer are greater quality, lower risks, and improved teamwork.

We will discuss continuous regression testing in an Agile/DevOps environment in this article. Before moving on, it is important to understand what continuous Agile regression testing is, why it is necessary when it is required, and what critical factors are for continuous regression test plans. These considerations can have a big impact when continuous regression test plans are implemented in Agile and DevOps contexts.

Regression Testing

Regression testing ensures that any code update has no negative effects on the application’s current functionalities. Regression testing is made possible by test automation and continuous performance in Agile. This testing is thus carried out in an agile and DevOps environment to increase application stability and guarantee that the application stays bug-free even after frequent code changes and with every new feature implemented.

Agile uses regression testing for higher-quality application releases. With the help of this testing method, developers can find flaws or errors in the build and evaluate how well the application functions without being impacted by frequent code updates or changes. Continuous high-value regression testing is ensured by agile methodologies, allowing teams to concentrate on new functionalities.

Because the application and deployment of these regular builds in Agile are subject to constant modification, regression testing is extremely important. As a result, a continuous regression testing strategy can keep up with modifications to the requirements, feedback from the production environment, and more.

Why Regression Testing in Agile and DevOps

Faster speed to market has now become an absolute necessity. DevOps and Agile are therefore the best methodologies to use in these situations because they allow for continuous improvement, testing, and release. Agile and DevOps are examples of an iterative, incremental development process. Regression testing is a crucial step in the test life cycle process because it takes into account user needs and the ongoing changes that are occurring around the application.

The application that has been developed is continuously tested and improved. Agile aims to incorporate modern features into the application while maintaining the application’s current functioning. Users should experience advanced applications with no difficulty. Regression testing is therefore carried out in Agile to maintain application reliability. Agile regression testing makes it possible to reduce risk in complex applications. It ensures that coding updates or modifications don’t affect how the application works in other ways.

Regression testing is carried out by the development teams in an Agile and DevOps environment to examine and recheck the different aspects of an application after the release of any new code. This confirms that the fundamental performance, functionality, and interdependencies remain stable.

Regression testing is the standard by which testers make sure the user is satisfied with the final application. Regression testing is thus essential for Agile as it helps development teams maintain vitality with each new product increment while increasing their concentration on creating the new products.

Agile’s complex application development forces testing and quality efficiency to ensure that any code modifications don’t affect existing characteristics. Regression testing also establishes the application’s general performance and guarantees that it achieves the user’s objective. Regression testing must be carried out in every release because continuous integration in Agile aims to produce an effective application continually.

Regression test scenarios that are ideal for Agile and DevOps

Regression testing is always carried out after integration testing and before user testing and deployment to production, regardless of whether an Agile or DevOps development model is being used. The most important thing to keep in mind is that regression testing is an essential step in the release process and is just as crucial as the actual development. It makes sure that the application is functioning properly and that users and teams don’t run into issues that could put the organization in the wrong kinds of headlines.

In a perfect DevOps scenario, regression testing should be considered when there has been a major change in the original functionality, even with a single issue patch. Here are a few instances in an Agile DevOps setting where Regression testing offers the ideal balance between continuous development and continuous testing.

• Whenever a new feature is added.
• When existing functionality is modified.
• when a patch fix or newly added feature causes code to be altered.
• When fixing the codebase’s bugs.
• After application upgrades are completed.
• When new patches are added.
• When a performance update necessitates changing the code.
• When the application configuration is altered slightly.
• When an app is integrated with another.

To ensure that all tested functions continue to perform as intended even if new functionality features are built over sprints, all of the above-mentioned cases should specifically be regression tested.

Regression Testing Advantages in an Agile and DevOps

An essential component of application testing in agile is regression testing. Let’s talk about a few amazing advantages of regression testing in Agile.

• Because regression testing aims to compel test cases for every feature of an application, it confirms more test coverage.
• Agile development and testing are carried out continuously in shorter sprints. After each brief sprint cycle, this eventually aids in enhancing the general stability of the current and newly built features.
• By guaranteeing the application’s stability when new features and bug fixes are added, regression testing in Agile helps developers provide high-quality applications to users.
• Regression tests are run frequently, and problems are fixed more quickly, which allows for improved resource utilization and frees up their capacity for higher-priority work.
• When done correctly, regression testing in agile allows the testers to be aware of an application flaw in advance. This aids the developers in fixing the flaw and avoiding accidents during development.

Challenges an Agile team faces with Regression Testing

There are far too many requirements-related adjustments made during the application development process. Because of their instability, these changes may reduce the effectiveness of the test automation method.

Regression test suite development and maintenance take a lot of time when testing large applications. It takes a lot of work to maintain regression tests, especially when new test cases are added or the ones that already exist are modified.

The number of regression tests grows with each sprint, making management more challenging. Testing teams should continuously automate and review tests to manage regression tests effectively. In the process, they must also eliminate ineffective tests.

Another difficulty the Agile and DevOps teams encounter when performing regression testing is communication. The regression testing process will be expedited if there is effective strategic communication between the testing team, developers, business analysts, and business stakeholders. Regression testing requirements for certain features can be accurately determined through excellent communication.

Regression Testing Recommendations in an Agile and DevOps Environment

Here are some recommended practices and suggestions to remember about regression testing.

Differentiating between sprint-level selective regression tests and entire regression testing cycles is crucial in an agile and DevOps strategy. They differ in terms of their objectives, time frames, platform coverage, and scope.

Regression suites must be regularly updated to incorporate both functional and non-functional high-value situations.

Remember to leave the high-value, high-priority test cases in the suite.

Regression suites that are challenging to automate and scale shouldn’t be included in the suite because doing so puts the cycle as a whole in danger.

Agile forces frequent changes to features and requirements, which consequently necessitates frequent changes to test code. Have a procedure in place to handle these alterations.

It is impossible to measure or enhance things that are not apparent. As a result, it’s crucial to have complete access to the regression suite reports with in-depth views to evaluate the ROI of the executions over time, according to platforms, within CI, and more.

The test scenarios inside the regression suites must be assessed to properly prioritize what to execute, when, in what frequency, etc.

A regression pack is a group of test cases that are run for each feature of a new application update. The document containing the requirement specifications has been used to write and design these test cases. To maintain accurate test results, it is therefore vital to update these test cases frequently with new features or additions.

Continuous testing in the Agile and DevOps methodologies ensures high-quality applications. To ensure that bugs are quickly repaired by the developers before delivery and with the least possible impact on the application, the approach calls for “failing fast” and “failing often” through continuous testing.

Using LambdaTest for Continuous Regression Testing

Continuous testing with automated regression testing is necessary for continuous integration and continuous delivery in agile and DevOps techniques. Automated regression testing is a method for making sure that new application updates do not impair the functionality of an existing application. Repeated regression testing offers a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the failed test that must be resolved before release dates.

But, as the application develops over time, the regression test suite expands along with the platforms and browsers that the application must be tested on to be certified. As a result, scaling up and maintaining the infrastructure required to support those numerous devices, browsers, and operating systems becomes more challenging.

In this case, a cloud-based testing platform like LambdaTest may be useful because it provides an architecture that expands along with the test suites. With thousands of real devices available and integrations with all the major solutions, this robust testing platform offers everything needed to get started.

With LambdaTest, developers and testers can use a cloud-based automation testing infrastructure of more than 3000 real devices, browsers, and operating systems to execute a variety of tests and quickly offer feedback for their websites and mobile applications.

A significant amount of resources, effort, and time are saved by running tests on LambdaTest simultaneously on a variety of devices and operating systems, browsers, and browser versions. This enables application improvements to be released on time. Furthermore, applications will work well on user devices because they have been tested across a variety of platforms.

The robust reporting and analytics capabilities offered by LambdaTest automatically record every test result detail. Once organized, real-time data is fed into reports and dashboards so that testers may always be aware of the progress and results.

Conclusion

Organizations today want both quicker release cycles and high-quality applications to provide excellent user experiences. As a result, a testing team must start testing early on in the development of the application to create high-quality applications that successfully satisfy the users’ expectations. While all features are tested from beginning to end to assure good quality, they must also employ effective regression testing in agile and DevOps processes. This will guarantee the timely delivery of high-quality applications to the market.