Recently CrowdStrike made news by crashing millions of Windows machines after a routine content update. Testing a significant and highly complex system like the Windows OS is a massive undertaking and unfortunately this defect slipped through with global ramifications. The cost to CrowdStrike users: approximately $5.4 billion, not counting reputational damage or lost future revenue. The defect went undetected throughout the SDLC with a root cause of a mismatch between the number of input fields expected by the driver and the input fields in the content update.. No company wants to be that company.
QAOps, or the synergetic intersection of QA and DevOps, impacts the quality of an application regardless of how rapid the release schedule. QAOps practices extend the impact of DevOps continuous testing for improved application quality. No matter how often the software testing profession gets knocked down, it comes up swinging right after one or more high-profile application failures make headlines.
Software testing impacts application quality and user experience. The QAOps model focuses on testing and ensuring application quality over release efficiency. Let’s compare QAOps and DevOps, and discuss the value of QAOps and its beneficial impact on application quality and business value.
How does QAOps differ from DevOps?
DevOps is a combination of software development practices and tools that automate the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and merges responsibilities for development, testing, and operations into a collaborative team effort. DevOps teams utilize CI (continuous integration), CD (continuous deployment), and CT (continuous testing) for rapid product updates.
One of the promises of DevOps includes integrating software testing within the CI/CD pipeline using continuous testing. CT test suites are created by developers and executed every time new code gets checked in, or a build created for release. CT enables teams to identify defects throughout the development cycle, eliminating or reducing the need for further QA testing.
A challenge surfaced for DevOps teams to achieve both release schedules and quality standards since as the team identified more defects, the number of bug fixes and new coding caused delays in release schedules. Another issue discovered by DevOps teams is that despite an automated CI/CD pipeline with CT during development, production defects continued or even increased. Why? In many cases, testing in DevOps falls to the developers rather than a dedicated QA tester.
Organizations adopting DevOps saw an opportunity to reduce costs by eliminating the need for testing outside of automated unit and integration testing performed by developers. Software testing in DevOps becomes a secondary or even lower priority.
DevOps testing failures account for the emergence of QAOps as a supportive or alternative model. While QAOps and DevOps seem similar on the surface, the QAOps focus on quality and thorough software testing departs from the DevOps focus on efficient and effective delivery.
QAOps develops and supports efficient software testing practices within a DevOps model. In QAOps, the role of QA testers remains prominent and primary throughout the SDLC. QAOps supports and develops CT suites to cover testing for security, new features, regression or other types of testing. In contrast with DevOps, QAOps puts application quality first in every phase of software development. Collaboration and automation are critical for delivering high-quality software and release efficiency.
Why Use QAOps?
Use QAOps when application quality, customer experience, and brand reputation are crucial. QAOps offers distinct quality-centric benefits, including:
- Improved team skills in test automation
- Building collaborative teams with a focus on testing
- Increasing the business value of testing while reducing development costs
- Recognizing the importance of the customer experience
- Leveraging CT for continuous monitoring and defect identification
- Providing test coverage for deployment and development
QAOps teams use QA reviews, input, and testing processing in every stage, including design, development, deployment, and maintenance. When software testers identify defects upfront, fewer defects end up in a deployed release. The fewer defects released onto customers, the less time spent repeating work at a higher cost.
Dedicated QA testers develop advanced skills in test automation, troubleshooting, and deployment in QAOps teams. By working alongside developers to automate tests at different coverage levels, testers develop the skills to code and maintain automated scripts for unit, regression, functional, smoke, security, deployment, and performance testing. Focusing on application quality and testing enables QAOps teams to produce reliable release builds on schedule without negatively impacting the customer experience.
Higher-quality application releases lead to never making headline news for releasing a critical, business-disrupting, and expensive defect. Business reputation and brand image both impact stock prices, sales, and profitability. Meeting or even exceeding customer expectations translates into a stronger market position.
Quality Matters to Customers
Software quality shouldn’t be optional. Customers have choices, and releasing an application with significant defects or a single defect that impacts millions of businesses and consumers will result in lost business. Software testing is a professional discipline that ensures application quality.
Continuous Integration, Development, and Testing work best with a quality mindset from developers in conjunction with dedicated QA engineering. QAOps teams develop different types of test automation based on the test type. Leverage team developers and operations staff to build test scripts that test the system from end to end, from unit testing through performance and release. Collaborative QAOps teams are a powerful way to ensure software application quality is exceptional and remains that way. With QAOps, customers get the application quality they need at a rapid pace to meet business needs. Put the best foot forward possible by using a dedicated QAOps team.
Need a dedicated QAOps team? Learn more about enhancing application quality with experienced testing teams.
