The more complex software becomes, the more essential an automation testing strategy—i.e., automated testing of the quality and security of developed applications—becomes, especially in the current climate of rapidly increasing cyberattacks and breaches. Automation testing helps to meet the requirements of the latest generation of software, in which the number of lines of code continues to increase.
Faster development cycles to meet time-to-market
Automation testing plays a key role today in the context of accelerating development cycles: leveraging paradigms such as modern application development, software must be delivered to end users or distributed to consumers more quickly and with much more frequent releases. This is necessary to remain competitive and to be able to respond, within the correct time-to-market windows, to the diverse business needs or requirements of users who demand apps and services with efficient, reliable, innovative features that continuously enhance the user experience when interacting with a brand. At the same time, however, the software must be as free as possible from defects and security vulnerabilities that could be exploited to install malware, carry out attacks, perpetrate data theft, or violate privacy.
Automation testing to overcome the limitations of manual testing
Automation testing, through various methods, technologies, and automation tools, aims to minimize manual operations, unlike traditional software testing methods. The latter require the manual writing and execution of all the tests and “test cases” necessary to adequately cover the program’s functionality and use cases in order to verify its safety and quality under all conditions. However, manual testing carries the risk of defects and bugs being introduced due to human error, and in the case of repetitive tests and routine operations, it becomes tedious for developers to perform. Furthermore, due to the execution times required, manual testing no longer appears to be a realistically applicable method in the outlined scenarios of increasing code complexity and acceleration of the software development life cycle (SDLC).
What is test automation
Test automation is a process whereby, with the support of dedicated software tools, tests are performed on applications and products to identify potential errors, bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and malfunctions. A test automation system allows both the design and execution of tests, but above all, it provides all the tools for analysis and comparison with reference KPIs and the creation of reports. Together with performance testing, it ensures the correct and efficient functioning of the application park. The main objectives of a test automation system are:
Automation testing, a key pillar of DevOps
Today, development teams are increasingly adopting paradigms such as DevOps which, among other practices, are based on the establishment of CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous delivery/continuous deployment) pipelines in the workplace, aimed at the continuous integration, distribution, and implementation of code. Especially in such environments, through automation testing, code security and quality tests are automated, integrated, and conducted continuously within the development cycle. In CI/CD practices, all changes made to the code are integrated through the creation of a build, which, before proceeding further in the SDLC, is immediately verified through a series of automated tests for quality and security control.
What are the advantages of test automation?
In short, the topic of test automation goes hand in hand with the new paradigms of application development and distribution. To simplify, we could say that continuous improvement and distribution require continuous testing, which could not be achieved in the traditional way. Test automation, however, has significant advantages that go beyond its necessity in these contexts. Here are a few
Difference between manual testing and test automation
In manual testing, all interaction is carried out by an operator, who checks the functioning of the application step by step, normally with the support of a checklist. Test automation involves the use of dedicated tools and frameworks that allow operations to be carried out more quickly and, if necessary, in a more targeted manner.
DevSecOps: how to automate security testing in the SDLC
Applying the DevSecOps (development, security, and operations) paradigm in the development environment is the way to integrate test automation into DevOps for security verification at every stage of the software development cycle.
Application security issues can affect many different aspects, such as password creation methods, authentication methods, code vulnerabilities, server misconfiguration, fragile application programming interfaces (APIs), the security of containerized applications and related infrastructure, and much more. The goal with DevSecOps is to quickly check all these security issues as early as possible in the SDLC, with the help of various types of automated testing tools that can accelerate and make the various code analysis and vulnerability scanning procedures repeatable and reusable.