webAI and MacStadium(link is external) announced a strategic partnership that will revolutionize the deployment of large-scale artificial intelligence models using Apple's cutting-edge silicon technology.
How do you integrate tools to enable shift-left performance?
Start with Everything You Need to Shift-Left Performance Testing Across Your Organization - Part 1
Selecting the right tools for a shift left performance testing process is important, but not as important as using them together in automated workflows. Testers should be using specialized commercial tools that enable them to create performance tests in an automated way. Developers can use similar tools to optimize their efforts or to create low-level scripts to drive automation and load.
The following tools will simplify maintenance, can be managed in a centralized way, and provide an easy-to-use UI to comprehend results.
A functional testing tool
Functional testing should already be a part of your continuous testing strategy. The tool you select for functional test automation should focus at both the API layer of the application (to simplify the test case execute action and maintenance) as well as the UI layer (for end-to-end and user experience testing). Functional testing tools are used to create baseline (re-use) execution paths, whether at the UI level or at the API level. These execution paths match up to user stories, so there will be a correlation between the performance test’s result and the user story that is impacted.
A performance testing tool
Specifically, you need a performance testing tool that can consume the functional testing artifacts and run them under load. These tools should have a variety of load control parameters such as number of virtual users or transactions over time. These tools should then report into a centralized dashboard for aggregating results.
A service virtualization tool
Service virtualization tools address the missing components of monolithic applications in the early stages of shift-left performance testing. One of the primary challenges you will face in early stage performance testing is a lack of supporting infrastructure, by parallel development efforts or third-party components. By establishing the baseline of those dependent systems and modeling them in virtual services, you can create similar application baseline conditions to production and laser focus on individual component performance during your test.
A continuous integration tool
Shift-left performance testing works best when it’s an automated process. If automation is deployed, "performance testing" means simply the review/maintenance of the automated performance tests, reducing time to execute tests over the long run since the process is automated and not manual. Your CI tooling should enable you to execute the performance tests as a function of code check in so that consistent performance tests can run nightly.
A centralized dashboard for aggregating results
A centralized dashboard is important because it enables users to understand the incremental impact of component performance tests by displaying trending information by project, component, API etc.
Your centralized dashboard should provide the ability to automate performance tests, define SLAs that turn the performance tests into pass/fail indicators, and see historical trends. Additionally, the reporting dashboard should provide details that link performance tests to their initial requirements so the business can properly prioritize issues that arise, as well as the high-level pass/fail view and, at the same time, every little detail, so you can determine the causes of failures after they have been detected.
The shift-left approach adds developers as dashboard users (in addition to managers and testers), so the dashboard has to have the low level details that the developers are looking for to effectively investigate and establish the causes for SLA failures or historic trends.
Summary
Consumers are burnt out with constant hot patches and performance optimization updates. They hunger for new features and functionality. Since performance testing is traditionally done at the end of the cycle, it inevitably impacts delivery deadlines, and as such it is looked at through a negative lens. By federating out the performance testing process and enabling agile teams to adopt a "shift left," iterative approach to performance testing, issues can be identified early. Not only does this ensure that technology decisions made can be easily assessed for performance degradation, but ultimately provides a more performant product overall by optimizing each individual area and laser focusing on performance.
Industry News
Development work on the Linux kernel — the core software that underpins the open source Linux operating system — has a new infrastructure partner in Akamai. The company's cloud computing service and content delivery network (CDN) will support kernel.org, the main distribution system for Linux kernel source code and the primary coordination vehicle for its global developer network.
Komodor announced a new approach to full-cycle drift management for Kubernetes, with new capabilities to automate the detection, investigation, and remediation of configuration drift—the gradual divergence of Kubernetes clusters from their intended state—helping organizations enforce consistency across large-scale, multi-cluster environments.
Red Hat announced the latest updates to Red Hat AI, its portfolio of products and services designed to help accelerate the development and deployment of AI solutions across the hybrid cloud.
CloudCasa by Catalogic announced the availability of the latest version of its CloudCasa software.
BrowserStack announced the launch of Private Devices, expanding its enterprise portfolio to address the specialized testing needs of organizations with stringent security requirements.
Chainguard announced Chainguard Libraries, a catalog of guarded language libraries for Java built securely from source on SLSA L2 infrastructure.
Cloudelligent attained Amazon Web Services (AWS) DevOps Competency status.
Platform9 formally launched the Platform9 Partner Program.
Cosmonic announced the launch of Cosmonic Control, a control plane for managing distributed applications across any cloud, any Kubernetes, any edge, or on premise and self-hosted deployment.
Oracle announced the general availability of Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure on Oracle Database@Azure(link sends e-mail).
Perforce Software announced its acquisition of Snowtrack.
Mirantis and Gcore announced an agreement to facilitate the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) workloads.
Amplitude announced the rollout of Session Replay Everywhere.
Oracle announced the availability of Java 24, the latest version of the programming language and development platform. Java 24 (Oracle JDK 24) delivers thousands of improvements to help developers maximize productivity and drive innovation. In addition, enhancements to the platform's performance, stability, and security help organizations accelerate their business growth ...