Not heard about QAOps yet?

Not heard about QAOps yet?

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Hello folks! Here I’m back with a new blog where we’ll be discussing the term QAops .I can bet you must not have heard about QAops if yes then what should I say you won the bet LOL. Many people doubt that the term really exists or not, in fact, you can read people arguing about for the existence of QAops in many journals and blog posts. We’ll get to know about the answers of few questions like what is QAops, Do people really use it, where did it come from?

What is QAops

Most of you people must have heard about DevOps if not then you can say, where DevOps is a set of software development practices that combines software development (Dev) and information technology operations (Ops) to shorten the systems development life cycle while delivering features, fixes, and updates frequently in close alignment with business objectives, there QAops includes maintaining software quality and you approach your work from a DevOps mindset.

Even though there is no official definition of QAOps, it can be defined in terms of two key principles:

1. Quality Assurance (QA) operations should be integrated into the CI/CD pipeline.
2. QA engineers should work closely with developers, IT Ops engineers and everyone else involved in the CI/CD pipeline. In other words, QA should not exist in a silo.

QAOps means integrating software testing into the CI/CD pipeline, rather than performing software tests on a one-off basis. The core idea behind QAOps is to increase direct collaboration between developers and testing engineers instead of having them work in isolation.

It is a fairly new process for integrated testing and quality assurance during the entire development and release phases. It may sound like a lofty promise, but it’s already working for big and small companies alike.

In short, QAOps is a process that can be used alongside DevOps and Continuous Integration and/or Deployment. At every stage, testing is done–for usability, for errors, and for quality. The reason that this is a game changer is that testing and development used to be two separate entities, and often testing could cause major bottlenecks that would slow down development and release. Now with QAOps, that doesn’t happen.

QAOps, then, takes the core ideas behind DevOps—the construction of an ever-flowing continuous delivery pipeline as the basis of software delivery, and the removal of the silos that separate the different teams that support that pipeline—and applies them to QA.

Do people really use this?

So the answer is yes. Facebook is one of the best examples of how QAOps just works. Facebook’s login feature enables users to log in to millions of apps and websites with their already created Facebook identity and privacy controls. In 2014, Facebook decided to migrate to Facebook Graph API v2.0 and enforce Login Review for all apps. To ensure that this migration went smoothly, Facebook wanted to test out the new version on the five thousand largest apps. Unfortunately, in-house they could only handle testing it on five hundred apps. So they chose to outsource. By outsourcing testing, they had all five thousand apps tested in a month and were able to identify and address critical problems with more than nine hundred apps–a feat that would have been impossible by solely relying on their in-house testing team.

So QAOps can work for the giants of technology, what about the small guys? QAOps can scale up or down to fit any business size. This includes agencies who are outsourcing providers for software development, such as DotCom Development.

When QAops should be used

QAOps is especially useful when specific types of testing are needed. For localization, QAOps is almost non-negotiable. When you are designing software or apps for a specific location or culture, you need to know that it actually fits in with that culture. If it doesn’t, your app will fall short. QAOps allows you to connect with testers in or near that location so you can really see if your software will connect or just be plain confusing.

QAOps can also be extremely useful in regression testing. In other words, you have some previously developed software and you need to quickly release a software enhancement, patch or configuration change. To ensure that the update is released in a timely manner, QAOps can help check for any new faults that may have been created by the new information being added. If you are using an agile project management process, regression testing can be viewed as something that causes unnecessary overheads. With the affordability and efficiency of QAOps, that concern is gone. And it is for this very reason that companies like OpenLink are integrating QAOps into their development process–it allows them to provide customers with the best software, faster.

How QAops can be used

QAOps is unique from processes like DevOps and Continuous Deployment. It doesn’t take as much of a culture change in the workplace. In fact, it will really only assist developers and testers–less sitting around time, more getting results and making fixes. Even if a company is utilizing software to create mobile checklists and forms, with the likes of IntouchCheck, using QAOps to verify quality of this forms can save you both time and money.

Beyond the technical keys to QAOps described above, keep in mind, too, that a successful QAOps operation requires support for QAOps from your organization — which starts with communicating the value of QAOps to decision-makers and other members of the technical team. You’ll want to lay out a clear path for achieving QAOps so that the rest of the organization understands what’s feasible.

In short, operationalizing QAOps requires both a specific approach to software testing and a campaign to convince stakeholders of the value of QAOps. Clearing these hurdles may take time, but once you are past them, you’ll begin enjoying faster, more efficient software testing.

References

https://saucelabs.com/blog/operationalizing-quality-assurance-operations-qaops

Quality Assurance Ops: The Basics