The mabl blog: Testing in DevOps

Testing in DevOps: The DevTestOps Manifesto

Written by Bob Reselman (Guest Author) | Oct 31, 2018 12:00:00 PM

Download the eBook to read about the road to testing in DevOps, and the principles of the DevTestOps manifesto:

Twenty years ago, watching a movie on demand on a cell phone screen couldn’t happen. The technology just wasn’t there. Twenty years before that, the notion of inexpensive cell phones that weigh less than half pound and have an international calling range that’s affordable to a high school student was the stuff of science fiction stories. Today, it’s business as usual.

Technology has come a long way since the early days of computers driven by vacuum tubes and software programs written on punch cards. This dramatic growth is due not only to the accelerating rates of hardware and software innovation, but to the modernization of the organizational processes that foster such innovation.

One of the most important advancements in those processes has been the DevOps movement.
DevOps is, as the name implies, a collaboration of Development and Operations team members. The fundamental premise of DevOps is to combine all those associated with delivering a software product into a unified, self-directed, and self-correcting team that follows agile as its work process. DevOps promotes the use of automation to do the rote work wherever appropriate in a process, thus allowing team members to focus on the higher order activities that go into making better products and solving complex problems.

DevOps has enjoyed a growing popularity over the years, particularly as demand for complex technologies has increased. In fact, the movement has grown to bring other disciplines into the fold. For example, there’s DevSecOps, which is the unification of Security with Development and Operations. DevSecOps came about because of the ever growing number of security hazards appearing on the digital landscapes. Organizations discovered that integrating security personnel into a work group at the beginning of a process not only reduces risk, but saves time and money too.

Clearly, unifying work groups toward a common goal is the way to go in modern software development. This is particularly relevant when it comes to testing. Comprehensive, continuous testing is critical for any successful software development process. Modern organizations understand this and are thus weaving testing into the fabric of their DevOps practice. The result is DevTestOps, the next generation of the practice.

Through the mabl team's journey of developing the mabl product, they have discovered that their vision of intelligent testing in DevOps - DevTestOps - isn’t confined to mabl. Paying homage to the Agile manifesto, they've developed a set of guiding principles for testing software comprehensively and at scale. These principles are called the DevTestOps Manifesto:

 

The DevTestOps Manifesto

Continuous testing over testing at the end.

Embracing all testing activities over only automated functional testing.

Testing what gives value over testing everything.

Testing across the team over testing in siloed testing departments.

Product coverage over code coverage.


mabl is sharing the DevTestOps Manifesto with the hope of helping the software testing community create better ways of testing to benefit the users and customers the software is intended to serve. Visit the manifesto at www.devtestopsmanifesto.org.

Download the eBook to read about the road to testing in DevOps, and the principles of the DevTestOps manifesto: