In a nutshell: Production testing involves validating an application’s actual behavior in its live environment, with real users and data. It is essential for ensuring the reliability of critical user flows under all circumstances, quickly fixing bugs, increasing the deployment cadence, and monitoring performance in the face of unforeseen events. This guide explains why and how to test in production, and how an automated testing tool simplifies this monitoring.
Production testing is a crucial step in the software development process because it allows quality assurance (QA) engineers to examine actual user behavior during the production phase.
In this article, we'll discuss the types and benefits of production testing, as well as best practices for monitoring your production environment and the metrics that indicate successful production testing.
Why test in production?
The main purpose of production testing (or sanity checks) is to detect defects and issues that can only be identified at this stage and in this context of the software development lifecycle.
These bugs and issues may not be apparent during development or testing. It is the production environment that reflects the actual conditions under which your software will be used.
Here are a few reasons to perform "sanity checks" in a production environment:
Ensure that key customer journeys run smoothly under all circumstances
Even if you replicate the production environment in a staging environment, some elements may contain inaccurate data or have slightly different configuration options.
Production testing helps you understand how your software performs in a real-world environment to ensure that key customer journeys function properly.
The QA team can also test the overall stability of the user experience and ensure that everything works as expected under load.
Resolve bugs quickly in production
Production testing allows you to identify bugs in real time and immediately implement security measures and fixes. Without this verification, it is often the customers themselves who notify you of issues, which directly impacts your brand image.
Increase the capacity to roll out features
Being able to frequently release new code or features during production testing improves your team’s agility, as the team can respond quickly to requests and roll out the necessary changes. It’s common to see that the more regularly a development team deploys new features to production, the more efficient and productive it is. In this case, smaller releases are deployed, which allow for rapid detection of any issues.
Monitor software performance under unpredictable circumstances
It is impossible to test all possible user interaction scenarios before the product is released. In many cases, the application may also be integrated with other solutions, such as online payment service providers (PSPs) or other more technical tools related to the website’s performance and deliverability.
Production testing allows developers to monitor application performance under unpredictable conditions. Production is the only environment where developers can observe unexpected interactions within the application and resolve issues that arise during those interactions.
How to Test in Production
Choosing the right testing tool is the first step in implementing a testing strategy.
A well-established DevOps process, combined with the right testing tool, can ensure smooth operations at every stage, from development to production.
Streamline Your Production Monitoring with an Automated Testing Tool
Automated testing tools not only perform functional monitoring, but they also provide additional features, information, and diagnostics, such as:
- Script viewer for reading your script in a step-by-step format that anyone can understand. (No code to read)
- A gallery of screenshots in the results to quickly and visually check the various steps.
- Customizable dashboards that adapt to your various needs.
Production Tester | Specific Strategies
Monitoring and Diagnostics
The main purpose of monitoring and diagnostics in a production environment is to ensure that the software is functioning as expected. To achieve this, you can perform the following tests:
Continuous monitoring
This includes performance testing, such as evaluating the product's stability, response time, scalability, and reliability, as well as conducting website speed tests.
Continuous monitoring helps detect issues that could impair the software's functionality.
Application Monitoring
It consists of two types—Real User Monitoring (RUM) and synthetic monitoring (simulation testing). The first checks how real users interact with the application server.
The latter examines how the application's APIs respond to continuous requests sent by automated visitors.
Real-time tracking
This means verifying every transaction on every layer within an application. It allows QA engineers to examine the codebase and detect errors, bugs, and performance issues.
Real-time monitoring also provides specific insights, such as the behavior of the call stack and problematic threads.
A/B Test
A/B testing involves releasing two versions of a web application or a new feature with subtle differences, such as different menu interfaces or color schemes. This divides the user base into several groups.
Next, assign a different variant to each batch to determine which one is best. These statistical tests help you decide which version to include in future releases.
Incremental version
This production test breaks down the product requirements into several independent modules, or phases:
Incremental phases
Requirements Analysis: Identification of the functional requirements of the software and the system.
Design and Development: Creating Features.
Test: Examine all existing functions using various methods.
Implementation: Finalizing the software coding design.
Incremental Version Models
Staged delivery model: Build the project one part at a time, in phases.
Parallel development model: Develop the product simultaneously as long as resources are available. This approach can help shorten the development process.
"Spike" Test
Spike testing in a production environment allows us to evaluate software performance under extreme conditions, such as a sudden increase or decrease in load.
It also defines the time it takes to recover from difficult circumstances.
Integration Testing
This approach combines all the different components, units, and software modules and tests them as a single entity.
Typically, the production code consists of several modules written by different programmers, and integration testing aims to identify errors in how these modules interact when they are merged. It also verifies data communication between these modules.
Feedback Tracking
Once the developers have released the software, they begin to observe how end users interact with the product.
When adopting this method, it is important to specify the elements on which users should provide feedback in order to facilitate the categorization of the data.
In conclusion
Production testing is a crucial part of a software testing strategy. It allows your development team to learn how the system performs with real users, data, and requests.
"Sanity checks" in a production environment help provide a better understanding of the software and improve its quality throughout the production phase.
At Mr Suricate, we like to think of ourselves as comprehensive insurance. You may be a good driver on the highway, but insurance is there to protect you from the risks posed by other drivers you might encounter or unexpected problems you might face on the road.
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FAQ
What is production testing?
This involves testing an application directly in its live environment, with real users and real data, rather than in a pre-production environment. The goal is to verify how the application behaves in real-world conditions and to detect issues that cannot be replicated in test environments.
Why test in production?
Because some issues only surface under real-world conditions: high traffic, real data, and various configurations. Testing in production ensures that key workflows remain reliable at all times, speeds up bug detection, and makes deployments more reliable.
How can you test in production without risk?
Using an automated testing tool that continuously monitors critical workflows and provides real-time alerts. We combine monitoring, diagnostics, and reproducible scenarios to take swift action without disrupting users.