An Introduction to Continuous Testing

In a nutshell: Before the “DevOps” era, most companies deployed or released software versions monthly, quarterly, every six months, or even once a year. This guide covers: What is continuous testing?, The benefits of continuous testing, Key components of continuous testing, Test automation.

Before the “DevOps” era, most companies deployed or released software versions monthly, quarterly, every six months, or even once a year. In the “DevOps” era, weekly and daily deployments are the norm.

To remain relevant in a rapidly changing world where user expectations are constantly rising, digital platforms must continually evolve. 

However, you can only move forward at the pace allowed by your development and quality assurance process.

The ability to quickly make robust changes to your offerings is essential, and performing continuous integration testing makes this possible while eliminating the margin for error.

In this article, we will discuss continuous testing and its role in accelerating the time to market for new releases.

What is continuous testing?

Continuous testing is a type of software testing in which the product is evaluated early, often, and throughout the continuous delivery (CD) process.

Continuous testing uses automated tests to ensure that teams receive immediate feedback so that potential risks can be mitigated as quickly as possible throughout the software development lifecycle.

In addition, team members can stay constantly informed about the product's status and what can be done to improve its quality and reliability.

The Benefits of Continuous Testing

Traditionally, software testing is not performed until after the code has been written and sent to the quality assurance department for independent testing. Once bugs are detected, the code is then sent back to the developers to be fixed.

This testing model is relatively effective. However, it is risky and time-consuming.
That’s where continuous testing comes into play.

Thanks to continuous testing, the code is automatically tested as soon as it is integrated, which allows for faster delivery of high-quality software releases.

In addition, continuous testing saves developers time and effort, since they no longer have to wait for the quality assurance teams to finish testing before fixing their code.

Instead, testing takes place continuously, allowing for proactive, real-time fixes to code quality and security issues. Multiple activities can take place simultaneously.

Continuous testing allows you to monitor vulnerability, security, and logic flaws in applications, microservices, and APIs by integrating with existing CI tools to detect issues early, thereby reducing time and costly efforts down the line.

Risk Reduction

A major advantage of continuous testing (CT) is that it reduces risks. The software is verified multiple times and in many different ways throughout its lifecycle, rather than just once. 

This provides greater visibility and offers more opportunities to identify areas of weakness.

When you modify part of the system, you can test it fairly easily. But then, how can you be sure you haven't broken something else?

This is where regression testing proves its value by retesting the parts of the application that haven't changed.

Not only is it less expensive to perform continuous QA, but it's also much faster. 

Continuous testing creates a “safety net” that boosts developers’ confidence in making changes and releasing updates. There is a much lower risk of deploying buggy code to production, because if something breaks, they can count on QA to catch it.

Key Components of Continuous Testing

Test Automation

Automation frees up time for your engineers to fix bugs found during testing.

In fact, continuous testing cannot be done without test automation. 

The idea is to require human intervention only when it is absolutely necessary and something needs to be repaired.

With this type of testing model, your quality assurance team receives continuous feedback so that necessary changes can be made well before new features are released to users.

Continuous Integration (CI)

Continuous integration is an essential part of continuous testing. This practice brings together the code from developers working on a project and places it in a code repository.

Of course, integrating code from different developers into a single project can lead to many bugs.

Every time the code is integrated, you’ll be able to find bugs as early as possible and fix them more quickly, saving time and money and avoiding the nightmare that results from releasing a defective product.

Continuous Delivery (CD)

Continuous delivery is essentially an extension of CI, in which the software delivery process is further automated to enable easy and secure deployments to production at any time.

Teams can continue their day-to-day development work with the confidence that they can create a production-quality release ready for deployment at any time, without the need for elaborate orchestration or special end-of-process testing.

Continuous delivery is necessary because it automates every step, from committing code to the repository to releasing fully tested and fully functional versions that are ready for production.

Continuous Deployment (CD)

Continuous deployment extends continuous delivery so that the software release is deployed automatically if it passes all tests. If the change causes a failure, the release is simply rolled back so that the bug can be fixed and the software released within minutes.

The fundamental idea behind CD is that releasing small, isolated pieces of code is the least risky way to deploy because, simply put, fewer code changes mean less risk of unexpected bugs (and easier debugging if bugs do occur).

How to Perform Continuous Testing

Continuous testing must be implemented at every stage of your CI/CD pipeline.

You can set up test suites for every code change, merge, or release. This way, you can run tests at a specific time rather than running all tests at once, which saves your team time and effort.

Continuous testing works best when using the latest version in an isolated environment.

Implement continuous testing practices in your workflow

Don't try to cover everything right from the start; just make sure the critical paths are covered, and focus on building a solid foundation of unit tests, functional tests, and anything else that can be automated or is deterministic, so that your tests are as fast and efficient as possible.

Building Regression Tests Incrementally

When you fix a bug, add a test for that bug. Incorporating this into your process builds up regression testing over time in the areas where you need it most.

Don't rely solely on manual testing for everything you need to do. Use automation to handle tasks that don't need to be tested manually and are functionally stable.

True continuous deployment requires a testing strategy capable of keeping pace with rapid development cycles.

Identify gaps in your current testing processes

Audit your existing testing strategy and identify its weaknesses. Finding the root causes of quality issues and release bottlenecks—from QA activities that your team spends too much time on to the types of bugs you frequently see in production—can help you pinpoint where you need to strengthen your QA processes.

Centralization of all reported issues on a single SaaS platform

By centralizing all reported issues in a SaaS issue-tracking platform, your team will be able to track and prioritize bugs appropriately.

Using a bug-tracking tool also significantly reduces resolution time by ensuring that developers have access to the information they need, when they need it.

The key to using bug trackers effectively is context. Make sure your process includes tracking items such as screenshots so you can pinpoint errors accurately and fix them as quickly as possible. 

Mr Suricate A SaaS solution for successful continuous testing

Mr Suricate a no-code SaaS solution for automated testing that detects bugs in real time on websites, mobile apps, and APIs. 

In the context of continuous testing, the solution offers several key advantages: 

• A tagging system and features to ensure comprehensive test coverage
• An API that will be integrated into your CI/CD
• “Continuous/Proactive Maintenance” Service
  

Our test automation solution has helped many companies innovate and accelerate their digital transformation. 

FAQ

What is continuous testing?

Continuous testing is a type of software testing in which the product is evaluated early, often, and throughout the continuous delivery (CD) process.

How do you perform continuous testing?

Continuous testing must be implemented at every stage of your CI/CD pipeline. You can configure test suites for every code change, merge, or release.