Shift Left to Streamline DevOps Testing and Improve Outcomes

Testing is a crucial part of the development cycle, ensuring that the end product functions properly for its intended use and is free of bugs and errors. At the same time, however, the testing process can feel like a burden to developers who are being pushed by their organizations to pump out results quickly.

Despite the best of intentions, it’s true that testing can create a delay in development. There are a few factors that may contribute:

• Testing backlog – if the work is too much or overly time-consuming for one person or team, perhaps because of a large code file or checking the work of many developers, it’s easy for work to pile up.
• Unclear requirements –the end use of the code may be unclear, forcing testers to go back to developers and even the business sponsor to gain clarity on what is needed.
• Developer bandwidth – by the time the tester’s report gets back to the developer, the developer may not remember the project’s details or how they wrote the code, requiring time to retrace their steps.
  
  

This disconnect between testing and development can create a damaging constraint, slowing down the business while frustrating testers, developers and end users. We recently welcomed Francis Pindar, founder of AdminToArchictect and a 26X Salesforce certified guru, to unpack some of these dynamics and share strategies to help teams find common ground in our webinar DevOps Full Circle: Development to Architecture to App Management.

Increase the flow of work

Two commonly used testing methodologies are large batches and single piece flow. In the large batch approach, developers file sizeable pieces of code for testing in one go. While this approach does allow testers to analyze a comprehensive package and often evaluate a fully formed feature or product, it is time-consuming, both in terms of the actual testing and any reworking required to fix problems found at this late stage.

On the other hand, in the single piece flow, smaller pieces of code are submitted at pre- determined stages rather than holding until everything is ready to go. One of the goals of a DevOps architect is to increase the flow of work through the system, and incorporating testing as early in the development cycle as possible is one way to achieve that. In other words – shift left.

Shift-left testing, also known as continuous testing, can flip the script on long test cycles. Additionally, it can improve quality and decrease the chances of errors making their way into production code as testers can catch issues much earlier in the development cycle.

This allows testers to alert developers to potential issues when it is fresher in the developer’s memory, drastically reducing the chance of a delayed release or having to scrap a feature at the last minute. As an added bonus, shifting left also shores up an organization’s security, as potential loopholes or weaknesses can be found and remedied at an earlier stage.

Enabling DevSecOps success

With Flosum, teams can shift left to accelerate digital transformation while improving their cybersecurity posture. Through automated remediation workflows, Flosum empowers teams to practice real DevSecOps that aligns DevOps and security teams. This integrated approach brings much needed governance to platforms, empowering teams to:

• Share important context, remediation steps and code.
• Drill into each identified risk and see recommended remediation actions.
• Remove guess work and assign issues for resolution with one-click.

To learn more about the benefits of shifting left and how Flosum can streamline your DevOps and testing cycles, schedule a free demo.

Hear more from Salesforce guru Francis Pindar by watching the full webinar.