In a nutshell: Deployment is only half of the software delivery process. This guide covers: What is Shift-Right Testing?, Types of Shift-Right Testing, Strategic Benefits of Shift-Right Testing, and Improving Software Quality.
Deployment is only half of the software delivery process. The other half involves ensuring quality on a large scale under real-world workloads.
Without replacing “Shift-Left Testing”—an agile approach that involves QA, the Product Owner, and developers collaborating to prepare tests, execute them, and evaluate quality and performance early in the development process—“Shift-Right Testing” is a complementary practice that helps ensure the highest possible quality of an application in pre-production and production environments.
In this article, we'll explore why Shift-Right testing is a strategic practice in your development process.
What is Shift-Right Testing?
Shift-Right testing is a testing approach that involves shifting the testing process to the right side of the software development life cycle.
This means that testing is performed later in the development process, closer to the time of deployment or even after deployment.
The goal of shift-right testing is to understand usability, stability, and emerging production issues.
Shift-Right testing involves a continuous testing process that enables early detection and correction of defects before they reach end users, ultimately leading to higher-quality software and, in the end, faster time to market.
Production tests provide:
- Extended access to the production environment and to modules that are sometimes only available in production (third-party services).
- The actual performance of the server hosting the application.
- End users and their behavior as production demand changes over time.
Shift-Right testing is closely linked to the DevOps methodology, which emphasizes collaboration between development and operations teams to automate and streamline the software delivery process.
Types of Shift-Right Testing
Shift-Right testing can be performed using several techniques:
Exploratory Tests
A manual testing approach in which testers explore the application to find defects that may have been missed in other testing phases.
Ongoing 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.
A/B Testing
The team builds and releases two versions of the same features to gauge user response.
A/B tests are ideal for understanding software usage and user preferences, and can only be conducted after the software goes live.
Production Compliance Testing
The infrastructure on which an application relies is constantly changing.
Production testing evaluates the quality of a given production deployment and the constantly changing production environment.
Blue/Green Deployment
The blue/green deployment requires two production environments that are maintained.
One is currently in use, and the other serves as a backup. The system can quickly switch to the other environment in the event of a problem in the existing environment—due to new code or a server failure, for example.
Canary Release
In the context of software testing, a Canary Release refers to the distribution of code changes to a small group of end users.
These tests are used to test the code with a small sample in order to assess the application's stability.
Feature flags (or feature toggles)
Feature flags are a development technique that allows you to manage multiple versions of an application feature simultaneously.
Their role is to enable or disable a feature in an application without having to redeploy it.
This helps the team make changes without pushing additional code and enables more controlled experimentation throughout the feature lifecycle.
Chaos Test
Chaos testing aims to address the unexpected. It is an approach to building a system capable of withstanding any type of failure.
Errors are introduced into the software and the server to test how the software works and whether it can recover.
Load Testing
This type of test involves measuring a system's performance under various loads or stress levels to ensure that it can handle the expected volume of traffic and usage.
Strategic Benefits of Shift-Right Testing
Improving Software Quality
Shift-Right testing can help uncover issues that may not have been detected during previous testing phases (using Shift-Left testing).
This can help improve the overall quality of the software and reduce the risk of bugs affecting end users.
Avoid unpleasant surprises
The actual performance of software in a production environment is unpredictable. Several external factors come into play, such as fluctuating resource usage.
Shift-Right test data consists of test results from real-world workloads, which help identify issues related to performance, functionality, and user experience.
This allows you to solve problems in small steps rather than being faced with major problems later on.
Faster time-to-market
By quickly identifying and resolving issues, Shift-Right testing can help accelerate the time to market for new features and releases, enabling organizations to remain more competitive.
Enhanced User Experience
Shift-Right testing is based on how the customer uses the application.
By identifying and addressing issues that impact the actual user experience, Shift-Right testing can help ensure a smooth, bug-free user journey.
Increased agility
By enabling rapid experimentation and feedback, Shift-Right testing helps organizations become more responsive to changing market conditions and the expectations of customers today and tomorrow.
Shift-Right Testing | The Importance of Automation in Production
Testautomation is the key to Shift-Right testing. An automated testing tool allows you to set up an entire continuous testing pipeline that includes integration, performance, and security tests.
These automated tools can be used to detect unexpected behavior in the production environment as soon as it occurs. They automatically collect data from the software in production to help you easily identify which parts of your software need to be fixed.
Essentially, automation is key in Shift-Right approaches for faster, more accurate, and more cost-effective testing!
Benefits of automating your Shift-Right testing:
- Faster feedback
- Broader test coverage
- Ensures that the software is thoroughly and consistently tested
- Cost Reduction
Mr Suricate A SaaS solution to automate your production tests
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 Shift-Right testing, the solution offers several key advantages:
- Regular, scheduled executions in production
- A tagging system and features to ensure comprehensive test coverage
- An API that will be integrated into your CI/CD
- “Continuous/Proactive Maintenance” Service
- Dashboards that monitor the application's activity and usability
Our test automation solution has helped many companies innovate and accelerate their digital transformation.
Further Reading
FAQ
What is shift-right testing?
This also involves testing in production, after the system goes live, not just before. We observe the actual behavior of users and the system to identify issues that upstream tests missed.
What is the difference between "shift-left" and "shift-right"?
"Shift-left" testing takes place as early as possible in the development process, while "shift-right" testing and monitoring occur in production. The two are complementary: anticipating early on and monitoring later in the process.
Why Test in Production?
Because some issues only surface under real-world conditions: load, real data, and unexpected behavior. The shift-right approach detects them before they degrade the user experience.
Is "shift-right" risky?
It requires safeguards (monitoring, alerts, non-intrusive tests), but when properly managed, it reduces the overall risk by detecting production incidents early.
How do you implement "shift-right"?
By continuously monitoring critical workflows with real-time alerts, Mr Suricate no-code production monitoring for both business teams and key accounts.
Take it a step further: production monitoring.
