The trends in software development are showing that more and more companies are adopting CI/CD methodologies to deliver their software applications. We all know that the market demands quicker releases. The days of waiting for months for new releases are gone. Software is now being released at record speeds! Adopting CI/CD does just that. It helps get your application out the door to the market as often as possible. However, one key aspect that seems to be overlooked is Continuous Testing. It’s great that CI/CD is getting software out quicker but quality should not be sacrificed. To solve that you have to test early, test often! Adding a culture of Continuous Testing to your model will provide the following benefits because now you’re focused on testing from the beginning of your SDLC
- Faster Release Cycles
- Better Code Quality
- Better Test Coverage
- Better Reliability
Now that we know to truly have a CI/CD methodology you need continuous testing as well. But just like adopting CI/CD, continuous testing requires an organizational culture shift. So how do you build that culture? It’s a different mindset that relies heavily on automation: Automated Unit Tests, Automated Functional and Non-Functional Tests, Automated Regression Tests, and Automated Deployments. Basically, anything that can be automated should be automated! That is the key principle of Continuous Testing, test from the beginning and automate as much as possible to ensure faster release cycles.
