Tips for Successful Transitioning to CI/CD

Last updated on April 8th, 2024 at 06:00 am

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There is no doubt that a continuous testing approach comes with a number of benefits for any organization. But in order to make the most of this approach, it is important to embrace it right from the beginning. Software testing needs to be performed much sooner so that issues can be fixed with the help of faster and more reliable feedback. This can help organizations in reducing their costs and improving their product quality. There are a number of factors including revision control, automation, and automated testing, that offer key benefits to ensure that QA teams are delivering high-quality software products. With the rising demands of multiple integrations that take place during the day, the developers need to get quality feedback. It is also essential to have a robust automation testing platform in place and continuous testing is the right solution to verify the facts. QA teams also use a number of tools including the defect tracking software to detect bugs at earlier stages in the software development process. 

The Continuous Testing Approach

Continuous testing is not a new term in the testing arena, but its use has also evolved. Without the help of automation tools, continuous testing is a means of testing during the entire software development life cycle. Testers would begin testing during the planning phase while writing relevant tests, waiting for a piece of software to test, release, and continue through the maintenance phases of the project.

During this process, testers would perform manual testing, but then there would be no end and testing would continue until the software retires. In today’s competitive era, development happens much faster. With agile methodology, the time constraints are reduced for which software is being released. Thus, to meet the rapid software delivery pace, manual testing is insufficient to keep pace with the development process. By automating these tests, testers can achieve goals so that testing can take place whenever a build is in process or is initiated. Defect tracking software helps in the early tracking of bugs so that they can resolve them as early as possible. 

Continuous testing includes both philosophies of shift-left and shift-right approaches to testing. The developers should test early and often and with better automation tool coverage so that testing can be completed in the projected timeline.

Continuous Testing Requires A Cultural Shift

Transition into continuous testing cannot happen overnight. In the traditional software development process, the responsibility of software quality solely depended on the QA professionals who had only a few weeks before a product launch was carried out to verify everything in a software product. Modern enterprises are now moving away from this approach and using a continuous delivery approach, where quality is the responsibility of all team members in an organization.

A defect tracking software has the ability to detect issues as early in the development process as possible so that they are fixed earlier and that quality can be ensured. To ensure an effective process, the automation tests should be robust so that they do not add any additional issues to the CI/CD pipeline. Developers can be confident about their CI/CD approach with the help of continuous testing.