DEVOPSdigest

As the software industry continues to evolve, developers and testers need to stay ahead of the curve by keeping up with the latest DevOps trends and practices. This blog will explore the top DevOps-related trends, practices, and key takeaways we collected from hundreds of industry experts across the globe and published in the 2023 State of Testing report.

The Widespread Adoption of Agile and DevOps

Agile and DevOps methodologies continue to be widely adopted by software development teams. In fact, 91% of survey participants reported using Agile, and 50% selected DevOps as a followed methodology within their organization (more than one option could be selected). This is quite an improvement compared to last year's results when DevOps methodology received 38%.

The success of these methodologies is reflected in the survey results, with 64% of responders claiming that their collaboration with developers had improved since implementing Agile and DevOps practices. Additionally, 54% of participants reported releasing more features and functionalities, indicating that Agile and DevOps can help teams deliver software more quickly and efficiently.

Finally, 52% of responders claimed that the overall testing level had improved since adopting these methodologies while 50% mentioned that serious bugs were finding their way into production with less frequency. These statistics strongly indicate that Agile and DevOps can lead to higher-quality software products.

The Rise of CI/CD

Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) practices are becoming increasingly popular among organizations. Roughly 50% of survey participants report that they use it for all or most of their projects, and another 34% use it for some of their projects. With only 14% claiming they do not use it at all, this is strong evidence of the broad adoption of DevOps and Agile approaches, with 21% growth in companies using CI/CD for all or most of their projects compared to last year's results.

We wanted to understand the involvement of software testers in the CI/CD process:

■ 40% of State of Testing respondents said they are an active part of defining and maintaining the CI/CD process

■ 19% only have access to reports to use as feedback

■ 17% are not part of the process at all

Although the increase in testers' involvement (38% last year) and using the reports as feedback (17% in 2022, 16% in 2021) is quite small, it is a consistent one indicating that software testing can shift left and at least be part of the testing process around CI/CD.

Automation Testing Is Here to Stay

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With technology constantly changing and improving, we can expect automation testing to grow in importance and become even more prevalent in the future. The top three areas where automation is commonly used by companies are Functional or Regression Testing (77%), Unit Testing (57%), and testing as part of the CI/CD process (54%).

51% of the participants reported that automation had replaced up to 50% of their manual testing efforts. These statistics indicate that a growing number of companies are using automation as a large part of their software testing. However, 26% of the participants said that although they use automation, it has not replaced any of their manual testing efforts, while 9% are not using automation at all. This suggests that while automation is becoming an essential part of software testing, it cannot entirely replace manual testing.

Further evidence of the importance of automation testing is the fact that 59% of the survey respondents considered test automation patterns, principles, and practices as an important skill needed for testers to succeed. This skill was positioned as the third most important skill after communication skills and Test/Experiment Design. These findings confirm that automation testing is not just a passing trend, but a critical aspect of the software development process.

What Does the Future Hold for Software Testing?

The report highlights some key trends in the software testing world that are expected to further grow in the future. This year, we have seen significant growth in the adoption of Agile and especially DevOps, with an increasing number of companies realizing the high value these modern approaches bring. It is expected to continue to be widely adopted by software development teams now and in the future.

CI/CD practices are also gaining popularity, and we are likely to see even more companies adopting these practices going forward. Automation testing will continue to evolve, and it will occupy a more significant part of the software testing efforts. QA testers will need to expand their knowledge in automation regularly and control its practices to succeed in the future, as it becomes a critical part of the software testing world.