Impact of QAOps on Software Quality

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 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.
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.
 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.
 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.
 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.
 ● 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.
 ● 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.
 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.
 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.
 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.
 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.
 ● 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.
 ● 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.
 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.
 Thanks You
Content Source: Medium

Contented by: Mindfire Solutions