Priyanka Charak | Posted on May 8, 2024May 8, 2024 | 2 min Read

8 Tips to Optimize Your Continuous Testing Strategy

In today’s competitive digital landscape, businesses are under constant pressure to accelerate their software development cycles and enhance digital capabilities. Although automation has become a staple in the software development lexicon, a surprising number of organizations—only 30% according to recent studies—have fully adopted automation testing. This gap highlights a significant opportunity: many companies invest heavily in digital transformations but fail to integrate comprehensive testing strategies, limiting their potential gains.

Continuous testing stands out as a critical methodology designed to align with the rapid pace of modern development cycles. This approach not only helps in detecting errors early in the development process but also ensures that software products consistently meet quality standards before reaching consumers.

What is Continuous Testing?

Continuous testing is an advanced software testing strategy that involves evaluating software quality at every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). This is done to identify defects early, thereby enhancing the quality of the final product while ensuring business continuity. It is a vital component of DevOps and Agile practices, integrating seamlessly with these methodologies to support continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD).

Key Features of Continuous Testing:

Immediate Feedback: Enables developers to receive immediate feedback on the impact of their changes.
Automated Testing: Utilizes automation tools to conduct tests repeatedly during multiple phases of development.
Quality Metrics: Provides ongoing insight into the quality and readiness of the product throughout its development.

An effective continuous testing strategy is pivotal for organizations aiming to maintain robust software delivery pipelines. Here are detailed strategies and practices to enhance the efficacy of continuous testing frameworks.

Challenges to an Effective Continuous Testing Strategy

Before exploring optimization strategies, it’s crucial to address the common obstacles that enterprises face: As organizations increasingly seek to accelerate their software deployment cycles, many grapple with significant challenges that hinder the effective implementation of a continuous testing strategy. Here are some key challenges:

Balancing Speed and Quality: A primary challenge in continuous testing is striking a balance between the speed of delivery and the quality of outputs. Rapid releases often sacrifice thorough testing, leading to potential bugs and performance issues.
Integration with Existing Processes: Many organizations face difficulties integrating continuous testing into their established development workflows, especially those that have traditionally relied on manual testing. This shift requires significant changes in both the tools used and the organizational culture.
High Initial Setup Costs: Establishing a robust continuous testing setup requires considerable investment in tools, infrastructure, and training. This can be a significant barrier, particularly for smaller organizations.
Choosing the Right Tools: Selecting appropriate and effective testing tools is crucial and challenging, given the vast array of available options. The wrong choice can lead to inefficiencies and inadequate coverage.
Managing Test Data: Effective test data management is essential but challenging. Ensuring that data is relevant, secure, and compliant with regulations requires sophisticated strategies.
Environmental and Technical Limitations: Providing stable and scalable test environments that accurately mirror production settings can be technically complex and costly.
Flaky Tests and False Positives: Automated tests may sometimes return inconsistent results or false positives, which can undermine confidence in the testing process and cause real issues to be overlooked.
Keeping Up with Changing Technologies: The rapid pace of technological advancement means that continuous testing strategies must constantly evolve to accommodate new technologies and platforms, which can be resource-intensive.
Scaling Tests with Development: As applications grow in complexity, scaling testing processes without a corresponding increase in time and resources poses a significant challenge.

These challenges underscore the necessity of a well-thought-out continuous testing strategy that is adaptable, scalable, and efficient to support the dynamic nature of modern software development.

8 Tips to Optimize your Continuous Testing Strategy

Test automation strategy is the backbone of the final product that a business delivers. It should be strong and flexible enough to bear the impact of any change and every variable of the testing process. Let’s discuss how optimizing continuous delivery testing strategy helps improving the testing process and to increase the software quality:

1. Complete Test Automation Strategy

Research indicates that many organizations tend to prioritize specific testing approaches—some focus on API integration and UI testing, while others may address these areas separately. However, a critical gap often exists in their lack of a detailed, automated continuous integration testing strategy that encompasses all these testing types. While selecting a particular testing method may be appropriate for certain business scenarios, it’s crucial for companies to develop a versatile testing plan. This plan should be capable of incorporating any testing type as needed. Understanding the distinctions and applications of continuous testing versus test automation is essential, given the varying scales and needs of businesses.

2. Streamlined Initial Test Process

Incorporating unreliable and overly complex test cases early in the development process can result in significant waste of time and resources, as QA teams are forced to engage in ineffective analysis of each code commit. To avoid this, it’s advisable for QA teams to start with a minimal set of test suites. This approach helps mitigate major risks while allowing for incremental adjustments based on the impact observed. Over time, the focus should be on gradually integrating more robust and stable test cases. In a DevOps environment, the quality of test cases is far more critical than the quantity executed.

3. Choosing the best test automation tool

In building a comprehensive continuous testing strategy, choosing the right test automation tool is not just a requirement—it’s a cornerstone for achieving complete stability in your development process. It’s essential to select a tool that not only fits the technical requirements of your projects but also enhances operational efficiencies.

One standout category in the realm of test automation tools is that which offers codeless automation alongside self-healing capabilities. Codeless test automation tools are designed to enable users to create automated tests without writing extensive lines of code. This approach significantly lowers the barrier to entry for team members who may not have traditional programming skills but are nevertheless integral to the testing process. It allows subject matter experts, business analysts, and QA professionals to directly contribute to test automation efforts.

In a continuous testing environment, where quick iterations and frequent releases are common, the agility offered by a codeless, self-healing test automation tool becomes even more valuable. By automating tests without requiring extensive coding skills, teams can rapidly create and adapt tests to evolving application features and requirements. The self-healing aspect ensures that these tests remain valid and reliable over time, even as the application undergoes changes, thereby supporting a truly continuous approach to testing and development.

Moreover, such tools can significantly reduce time and maintenance costs associated with the lifecycle of automated tests. They enhance the reusability of test scripts and ensure a higher return on investment by minimizing the need for frequent manual updates and intervention.

By choosing a codeless automation tool with self-healing features, organizations can enhance their testing capabilities, accelerate their time to market, and ensure that their testing strategies can adapt to the dynamic nature of modern software environments.

4. Modularizing tests

For complex integrated applications, modular testing offers an effective strategy to simplify and manage functionality. By decomposing the application into distinct modules, teams can create a clear roadmap that aligns testing processes with different workflows. Modular testing facilitates the organization and restructuring of tests by separating test data, test flows, and element locator mappings. This approach not only streamlines the testing process but also enhances the adaptability and maintainability of the test suites.

5. Leveraging Automated Screenshots

Automated screenshots are invaluable for diagnosing the reasons behind test failures. They provide a visual reference that can be crucial for in-depth analysis of issues encountered during test execution. A robust automation tool should be capable of capturing screenshots at key interaction points automatically. However, not all tools support this feature. If your current test automation solution lacks this functionality, it may be worthwhile to consider switching to another platform that does, to fully benefit from the diagnostic advantages of automated screenshots.

6. Optimizing Test Automation ROI

With the rise of continuous testing, automation, and DevOps, alongside the demand for faster delivery, the standards for quality software have significantly increased. Companies are striving to stay competitive by refining their testing and development strategies, all while keeping costs low. Managing test execution costs is essential. As testing scales up, the use of cloud resources becomes necessary, which can be costly. An effective strategy would be to differentiate between high and low-level testing requirements—conduct more complex integration and compatibility tests on the cloud, and run basic tests on-premise. This approach helps maintain a cost balance while maximizing automation ROI.

7. Tracking and Monitoring

When development and operations teams collaborate, numerous operational challenges emerge. Developers aim to deploy updates swiftly, while testers focus on ensuring the reliability of service delivery. Bridging this gap requires continuous testing and integration within DevOps frameworks. To effectively manage these challenges, investing in system monitoring tools is crucial. These tools help identify the root causes of discrepancies and failures, enhancing overall efficiency.

8. Benefits of Outsourcing QA

Outsourcing the QA process provides additional support, giving businesses a competitive advantage in delivering high-quality services. In the realm of continuous testing, outsourcing offers a significant boost by providing access to specialized areas such as impact analysis, performance, and security testing. This focused approach injects vital energy into specific phases of the development lifecycle, creating a mutually beneficial scenario for both developers and testers.

Continuous Testing and Delivery is not a luxury but a necessity in today’s era. A well designed continuous testing strategy is the foundation of continuous testing and quality service delivery. Although the journey is full of challenges if planned meticulously, the businesses would be able to streamline and reap the maximum benefits of test automation and continuous testing.

Comprehensive Test Coverage

Test your apps on 5000+ real device and browser combinations and ensure a complete test coverage.

Priyanka Charak | Posted on March 6, 2023August 3, 2023 | 2 min Read

12 Common Appium Mobile Test Automation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Appium Mobile Test Automation

As we all know that Appium is the most preferred test automation tool for mobile applications. It is the first choice of the testers because of its flexibility i.e. it is open source, it has the best supported and highly active community of experts, Appium works across different platforms and works well with different scripting languages. Even after gaining such popularity and having a strong community base, surprisingly, the users still make mistakes while running the mobile test automation with Appium.

Here are a few common mistakes that Appium users encounter while using Appium Mobile Test Automation Tool:

1.Unrestricted X Path Usage:

Over usage of X Path could be found in case of Selenium as well but when it comes to Appium world, it has more outrageous effects because X Path is a more dynamic way to unearth the elements. But the biggest stumbling block in this scenario is its huge performance cost due to which it becomes elusive an area. This is because Google and Apple do not provide XML or XPath related queries in a way we would need them to be. All of this hospitalizes an unmanageable cost finding elements using X Path. Undoubtedly, X Path is the most trusted method but there are several other better locator methods like ‘Accessibility IDs’ that can be used in this sitch.

2. Neglected usage of Accessibility IDs:

The accessibility ID locator strategy is formulated to read a unique identifier for a UI element. For both iOS and Android, getting an element by their accessibility ID is the best method. Most importantly, it is preferable because it is quicker. It should be noted that semantically accessible IDs are different than the Web IDs. However, the two shouldn’t be combined. In many cases, the accessibility IDs are used only for the purpose of testing even though they have a larger purpose. So, in order not to spoil the accessibility of the applications just for the sake of testing, the bigger purpose of the accessibility IDs should be known. If the accessible IDs are set up on the elements to make the apps testable, the app accessibility also increases, provided that the accessibility labels are sensible to the users using them. But the foremost criteria not to make automation efforts a failure is to make the application testable in the first place.

3. Not making a testable App:

Developing an app should be a forecasted move where in the developers, even before writing the first line of code, plan to develop an app keeping the automation in mind. This they can achieve by keeping in mind the hooks and the unique IDs for the elements in order to make the app more testable. This strategic approach would be a reason for a successful mobile app test automation. Apart from this, there should also be a concentration on the different testing scenarios in order to elude the chances of overlapping before even getting into Appium coding. An open discussion forum with the development teams to discuss the plotting of right accessibility IDs, labels or Unique IDs for the application’s elements would reduce many test automation reliability concerns.

4. Disregarding Application View States:

One of the challenge faced in Mobile Test Automation is not setting up the application. Most of the developers do not set up the application in order to access specific views and user states rapidly. To quote an example given by Jonathan Lipps,one of the key contributors to the Appium project.

A shopping cart functionality of the app might have ten different tests, and ninety percent of the tests might go through the same steps of logging in and searching items to be put in the cart which is a huge waste of time.

So, your team should be able to set up an app’s state and start the test in that apposite state, straightaway. This is highlighted in Appium scenario due to the fact that the mobile simulators and emulators are slow and take longer than usual to reach to the right position on the test.

5. Query for every element visibility:

Not querying for the visibility of every element is another way to speed up the run-time of the Appium test scripts. This leads to an additional load of calls and waiting time for Appium while in the every activity of retrieving an element. The lag can be reduced by only requesting the element attributes which are important in perspective of the test code.

6. Native Testing tools – Always better?

According to some developers, usage of the native testing tools is the best way to get unfailing mobile tests. For example- Espresso in case of Android and XCUITest in case of iOS. This is not good advice as neither of Google or Apple are going to release and new automation technology. When the question is of stability, the stability of code should be chosen rather than technology and in this scenario, Appium is the best choice!

As an exception, if the development team writes the tests and it’s most comfortable in mobile SDK language, using Google and Apple providers to build development environments. Also, when the constricted test-app or test code-app code integration is needed, then Appium might not be of much help. The utmost value is that Appium provides the WebDriver layer on top of the technology, which means the code can be written in any language and acts as a stable interface to that specific automation technology. Also, being a cross-platform tool, Appium allows to saves a lot of code and architecture in case of testing both iOS and Android devices.

7. Appium is slow:

Appium might be slower in some circumstances and also there are points in Appium codes where it does not seem efficient. Appium backs upon technologies that are slower than Appium and the curators of Appium have strategically chosen to utilize slower strategies for specific instances. For eg: Appium will certainly be slower if you are relying on XPath. The efficiency of the tool depends on how it is being used. Mostly, Appium is favored because of stability than the speed.

8. Not Using Appium Documentation:

The earlier Appium docs were not very user friendly. As a result, they weren’t used as much as they needed to be but the new Appium documents have been completely redesigned and reorganized. Information about the API reference to Appium, client libraries, supported drivers and Appium commands, code examples which was not provided before is all documented in the updated version. It deserves a revisit due to its newness and can be accessed at Appium.io.

9. Not creating reusable code

Repetitive or duplicate code can cause several issues for Appium mobile testing process. When the same code is repeated in several test scripts, any updates or modifications must be copied across all instances. This increases the chance of failures and complicates the debugging procedure. It also increases the maintenance cost for the organization.

Duplicate code makes identifying the primary reason for a test failure challenging. It can be difficult to pinpoint which occurrence of the code caused a test to fail if the same code is used repeatedly throughout several test scripts. This could increase the duration required for debugging the software and expand the market time.

Therefore, it’s crucial to use appropriate coding principles to prevent these issues. This includes creating simple reusable code, utilizing libraries and frameworks, and modifying code to remove redundancies.

10. Ignoring the Test-driven Deployment

Test-driven deployment is an Appium mobile test automation approach that stresses developing automated test cases before writing application code.

It lets the developer test all the application features before being deployed. This way, they can detect and resolve any bug in the early stage. This saves not only the organization’s time but also valuable resources.

Not just this, Test-driven deployment also helps developers in developing more reliable and enduring codes. By allowing them to understand the needs and provide a solution accordingly. Which lets them create more modular, maintainable, and error-free codes.

11. Choosing the right tool for API testing

APIs may have several endpoints, each with a unique set of parameters, methods, and authentication requirements. Writing and maintaining tests that accurately reflect the behavior of the API can be challenging due to this complexity.

Another difficulty is the requirement to simulate various scenarios and inputs. Testing for different response codes, error messages, and payloads might be part of this. To ensure the API can manage a high volume of queries, developers might also need to simulate load and stress testing.

Developers use a testing framework or library like RestAssured and Postman, which provides integrated support for API testing. These tools streamline and simplify the testing process by providing pre-build methods for common API testing scenarios, these tools streamline and simplifies the testing process. Alternatively, they can mimic various scenarios and inputs using mock data or a staging environment.

Developers can test their API in a safe setting before releasing it for production. Moreover, they can evaluate the API’s capacity by simulating heavy requests using load-testing tools like JMeter or LoadRunner.

12. Need to follow a good design pattern.

In Appium mobile test automation, the Page Object Model (POM) and the Page Automation Layer Model (PALM) are popular architectural patterns. Both techniques increase automated tests’ maintainability, scalability, and reusability.

POM is a design pattern that emphasizes the creation of reusable and modular code by isolating the application’s user interface from the test automation code, making it simpler to update tests when UI changes are made. POM builds an object repository that holds all the web elements and methods.
PALM is another design pattern that builds upon the principles of POM. But unlike POM, which focuses on UI elements, PALM emphasizes creating an abstraction layer between the test automation code and the application’s business logic. This approach distinguishes the test automation code from the underlying implementation. Thus making it easier to modify the test code without affecting the business logic.

Priyanka Charak | Posted on February 27, 2023October 30, 2024 | 2 min Read

10 Best Continuous Integration Tools In 2024

Technology is growing exponentially and to be in the game, organisations have no choice but to be technologically enabled. Talking about ‘technology’ basically means creating solutions that are ‘faster, ‘convenient’ and ‘qualitative’. To keep up with the highly demanding technological dynamics, not only human resources need to be equipped with the contemporaneous developments of this industry but there is also a dire need of highly standardized processes in order to deliver the top-class results. That’s when the need of DevOps emerges. Right from the planning through delivery, the idea of introducing DevOps is to maintain the quality streak by a systematic collaboration of development and automation across the continuous delivery and continuous Integration. To make it simpler, there must be a convenient way to tackle the complicated scenarios without delays and for on time delivery. Hence, the introduction of Continuous integration tools makes it easier for the developers to streamline the development processes.

Continuous Integration methodology enables developers to provide immediate reporting whenever any defect is identified in the code so that immediate corrective action can be taken. It is an important part of DevOps that bis used to integrate various Devops stages. The testing process is also automated and the same is instantly reported to the user. There are innumerable Continuous Integration tools available in the market providing access to different unique features. These have open source as well as paid versions, depending upon the need of the user, the most preferred could be selected. Although all the continuous Integration tools are designed to perform the same basic functions but choosing the best suitable CI tool becomes important in the long run. Depending upon many factors like features, cost, ease of use, etc. more than one tools can also be chosen meeting varied needs and not just the single solution. Comparing the best continuous Integration tools that are available in the market, below is the list of 10 best and mostly used Continuous Integration tools which must not be ignored in 2023.

Continuous Integration Tools

1. Jenkins

Jenkins is a known and the most common Continuous Integration tool available today. Based on various comparisons, Jenkins tops the list. Jenkins is opensource continuous Integration server-based application that allows developers to build, automate and test any software project at a faster pace. It was originally a part of Hudson project started by Kohsuke Kawaguchi in the year 2004 but it was later on released by the name Jenkins in the year 2011. The tool has evolved over the years and has become the most reliable software delivery automation tool. The source code is in JAVA with few Groovy, Ruby and Antlr files. It has almost 1400 plugins to support the automation of the development tasks. Jenkins supports the entire software development life cycle right from building, testing, documenting and deploying. Jenkins comes with WAR file that allows easy installation of the tool which needs to be dropped into the JEE container and the setup can be run easily henceforth.

Key Features:

1. It is an open-source server for Continuous Integration tool
2. It is written in JAVA and comes with thousands of plugins that help in build, automation and deployment of any software project
3. It can be installed easily on any operating systems
4. User friendly interface that is easy to configure and with easy upgrades.

2. Buddy

Buddy is a web-based, self- hosted Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) tool also known as Buddy.Works.Buddy is a serious advancement as one of the trusted CI CD tools. It has an extremely friendly user-interface and is also the simplest tool to use for the web developers, designers and quality assurance teams. Git developers can use this tool for building, testing and deploying the websites and applications using Github, Bitbucket, GitLab codes.

Key Features:

1. Steps for launching containers, automating deployment, and setting up
monitoring can be easily customised
2. Build, Ship and Deploy as inbuilt stack feature
3. Can be deployed to any hosting and cloud service providers
4. Supports Grunt. Gulp, MongoDB, and MySQL
5. Real-time reports on progress, logs and history can be monitored
6. Docker based builds and tests.

3.TeamCity

Teamcity, first released in 2006 is a continuous Integration tool developed by JetBrains. It runs in Java environment and is used to build and deploy different projects. It supports integration with many cloud technologies like Microsoft Azure, VMWare, Amazon.

Key Features:

1. It is a free of cost Continuous Integration tool
2. Supports platforms like Java, .Net and Ruby
3. Allows easy integration with IDEs like Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, Visual studio
4. Allows code coverage, inspection and performs duplicates check and creates history
reports of any changes made
5. It supports running multiple builds and tests under different platforms and
environments.

4. Bamboo CI

Bamboo is another Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) software developed by Altassian. It is written in Java and supports other languages and technologies like CodeDeply, Ducker, Maven, Git, SVN, Mercurial, Ant, AWS, Amazon, etc. The tool performs automatic build, testing and deployments. Automation thus saves time and allows developers some extra time to focus on the strategic aspects of the product.

Key Features:

1. Bamboo can build, test and deploy multiple projects simultaneously and in case of any build failure, it provides the analysis and the failure reports
2. Current status of the builds and server status can be monitored with the help of the REST API provided by Bamboo
3. Bamboo supports testing tools like PHPUnit, JUnit, Selenium
4.It is compatible with JIRA and BitBucket
5. Bamboo is related to other products like JIRA, Confluence and Clover by Altassian allowing the developers and the other team members to be at the same page
6. It can also import data from Jenkins.

5.GitLab CI

GitLab Continuous Integration tool is a complete code management platform with multiple mini tools each performing a different set of function for the complete SDLC. It is owned by GitLab Inc and was created by engineers Dmitriy Zaporozhets and Valery Sizov . It provides important analysis on the code views, bug management,CI CD in a single web-based repository which also makes it the most demanded CI CD tool. GitLab CI is written in Ruby and Go and its core functionality is released under an open-source MIT license, keeping rest of the functions under proprietary license.

Key Features:

1. It is directly integrated with the GitLab Workflow
2. Allows all critical information on the code progress in a single dashboard
3. Free for the community edition, the enterprise version is paid one
4. Language Programming CMD build scripts available allowing to program them in
any language
5. APIs are provided to allow better product integrations

6.Circle CI

Circle CI is one of the best Continuous Integration and Delivery tool available in the market. CircleCI provides a great platform for build and test automation along with comprehensive deployment process. It can be integrated with GitHub, GitHub Enterprise and Bitbucket to create builds. It also supports on-cloud Continuous Integration. Because of its strong features and efficient performance in this space, it is highly recommended by experts.

Key Features:

1. It easily Integrates with Bitbucket, GitHub, and GitHub Enterprise
2. It allows branch focused deployment
3. It performs easy bug-cleanup, runs tests quickly and is highly customizable
4. Easily integrates with AWS, Google cloud and other services
5. Build tools like Maven, Gradle can be easily integrated

7.Codeship

Codeship Continuous Integration tool was acquired by Cloudbees. It is praised by its users for its combination of features for build and deployment. It is efficient, simple and deploys directly from the Github and Bitbucket. Its features of integration and delivery are combined in such a way that it makes more reliable deployment as soon as the code is automatically tested.

Key Features:

1. It allows a very supportive environment when it comes to compatibility with different technologies, languages, deployment in different environments of choice.
2. It has a very fast and strong developer support and is very easy to use.
3. It also supports third party tools integration very well.
4.It requires a single sign-up for Github, Bitbucket and Gitlab
5. Allows simple file management configuration, easy monitoring and scale-up as per the need.

8. Cruise Control

CruiseControl is a Java based Continuous Integration platform. It is popular for allowing various source controls, email notifications and build technologies with the help of plugins. It is written in Java and has versions of .Net (CCNet) and Ruby (CruiseControl.rb.) as well.

Key Features:

1. Supplies builders for Ant, Nant, Maven, Phing, Rake, and Xcode.
2. It is an Open source Framework
3. Allows Custom build loops for build cycles
4.Its web interface provides visual status of the builds
5. Provides JSP Reporting for managing build results

9. BuildBot

Buildbot is a software development continuous integration platform that allows automatic compilation and testing in order to validate any changes occurred in the project. It is written in Python. Originally created by Brian Warner, it is now maintained by the developer Dustin Michelle. It is popular for performing complex automation testing of the Development Life Cycle processes and for application deployment. This is among one of those tools that allow distribution and execution of programs parallelly on different platforms.

Key Features:

1. It is an Open source Continuous Integration Platform
2. Automates complex building, application deployment and manages complicated software releases
3. Allows time estimation of build completion as it provides real-time insights of the build progress.
4. Uses Python, C and host requirements of Python and Twisted
5. Supports distributed, parallel execution across multiple platforms and provides extensive status reporting

10. GoCD

GoCD Continuous Integration server is owned by Thoughtworks. It streamlines the build, automation and deployments of complex build cycles. Its top USP is to enable plugins or design custom plugins for any requirements during the CI CD process. It follows business continuity concept under which it sets up multiple servers is possible in order to keep the data readily available at the time of emergency. It is compatible with Windows, OSX, AWS AMIs, Docker, Debian/APT, RPM/YUM, and Zip. It can run tests in multiple languages and provides robust reports on the insights.

Key Features:

1. It is an opensource Continuous Integration server.
2.It allows the deployment of any preferable versions of applications
3.It easily configures the dependencies based on the last report and allows on
demand deployments
4. There are numerous plugins available for this and can also be customized as per the
requirement.
5. It re-uses the pipeline configuration keeping the configuration organized with the
help of its template system
6. The entire workflow can be tackled and watched with good tracking and feedback
system allowing the developer to track changes from committing through
deployment at a single place.

Conclusion

The above list of best Continuous Integration tools describes each of the ten tools in detail and covers the best of all along with their main features. This information is insightful for those who still haven’t thought of inculcating these automation tools to build and deploy various aspects of the Software development projects. Continuous Integration, delivery and deployment are very critical and complex systems in the Software theory. They need to be handled with care in order to fetch great results. Choosing the right tool for your business would certainly help handle this responsibility well. It is not about choosing one best tool, but multiple tools can also be selected based on the requirements of the project. As the CI CD continues to grow and evolve, it leaves the innovators with more chances to explore on creating the best versions of such tools.

Priyanka Charak | Posted on February 22, 2023February 22, 2023 | 2 min Read

Mobile Devops + Agile – Challenges and Keys to Success

Mobile Devops+Agile Keys to Success

The need for mobile applications has increased manyfold in this technological era. They have changed the way we interact with our surroundings. Therefore, developers are seeking more convenient ways to create mobile applications. Which not only guarantees the highest quality but also ensures less time to market.

DevOps and Agile are two approaches that have emerged as critical players in this space. These technologies help a developer create more professional, reliable, and efficient mobile applications that aim to enhance the users’ overall experience.

DevOps is a methodology that combines operations and development. To streamline and automate the entire app development process. While Agile is a methodology that mainly emphasizes development, teamwork, and continuous feedback.

Whether you are a professional developer with years of experience or just starting your career as a mobile app developer, adopting DevOps and the Agile approach will surely help you to develop the best mobile application that your users will love. Let’s find out how the developers can leverage these platforms to benefit their projects.

Delivering a high qualified software is not a Unique Selling Point anymore but a prerequisite for better customer experience. In the present era, the customer is very educated about the choice and comparison between the best services or products. Along with quality goes the promptness in service delivery. In terms of Quality Assurance, both can be achieved by implementing Agile and DevOps best practices. The developers have achieved a lot in terms of solving quality issues and delivery with the help of automation. To ensure constant success in this maneuvre, the firm has to ensure that the metrics to be tracked are chosen rightly in order to maintain the quality throughout the development process.

The delivery of mobile apps is done differently than other ordinary apps. Although the elements of Devops – agility, Continuous integration and continuous enhancement are followed in both the cases but specifically in case of mobile apps, there has to be a unique strategy and tools.

What are the mobile application delivery challenges?

Mobile apps are built for smaller screens, need of touch output are completely different than that of web apps which need mouse or keyboard. Apart from these, it faces other challenges like:

Fast Delivery

Mobile app users are used to fast service of apps, automated updates and quick response time. So to maintain the competitiveness, the mobile app industry has to focus on methods and tools that leverage quickness and quality of the output delivered. The faster the performance of the apps and updates, higher will be its chances to overpass the competitors.

Design and build of Mobile Apps

Mobile apps are built on a different understructure. The entire build and design exercises have to be executed and tweaked according to the screen size and device architecture. Also, based on the advantages of mobile device, the apps should utilize the features like camera, GPS, Bluetooth, voice/video calling to give an edge to the app’s friendliness and captivating ability. If the mobile app is poorly fabricated, it will quickly drive away the users.

Competition in the market

As per the latest statistics, there are about 2.8 million Android apps and 2.2 million apps available on Apple store and thousands more are released each month. The app with the unique features will only be chosen and the competition increases as the mobile device market advances.

App Store dependability

Who knew that app store would be a challenge? Yes, most of the times the apps cannot be deployed directly to the device, it has to go through the app store. This acts as an additional step in the process which delays the app deployment on the user’s device. It also restricts the developers to push direct updates or critical bug fixes in the app. So instead of being a ‘continuous delivery’, it becomes ‘awaited delivery’.

Above are some of the most common challenges that are faced in mobile software delivery but how to meet these challenges?

The Devops team can follow a more analytical approach to the software delivery with a concrete set of Devops principles.

1. Early Monitoring
2. Achieve quality at good Speed
3. Multiple Channel Visibility
4. Automating to the maximum
5. Constant feedback

1. Early monitoring:

Most organizations tend to monitor their built apps only in the production stage after releasing it to the end users. This is the biggest mistake they can do. The DevOps team will have to reconsider this practice and work on a different approach by monitoring the critical measures at pre-production stage. Continuous monitoring and making early stage improvements would really matter in the overall app success.

2. Achieve quality at good Speed:

To achieve ultimate success, the DevOps team has to focus on quality with speed and also consider the cost it would incur. To accomplish this powerful goal, the team has to adopt DevOps and agile practices alongside. According to Forrester analytics reports, the firms who have adopted this approach has seen a rise in the benefits like technical and functional quality, and high delivery frequency. By emphasizing on building the expertise of the resources, implementing continuous testing, involving testers as a part of integrated testing phase, automating end to end functional testing and by implementing shift-left testing at all levels of development cycle, the firms give the software testing a new face leading to business transformation.

3. Multiple Channel Visibility:

Mobile apps have to be built for serving different platforms. Along with the web version of the app, the DevOps team has to deliver a mobile version in most scenarios. In order to attain this understanding, developers need to analyze what is the journey of the users when they decide to switch from web to mobile apps and one device to another. This is a critical data that would be the deciding factor in developing the app for different channels.

4. Automating to the maximum:

As per the Forrester study conducted on the success of advanced Devops+Agile firms, the firms have automated most of the testing processes by 50 percent in order to reap the benefits of successful Mobile Devops. The result is faster and quality software delivery by a continuous testing implementation.

5. Constant feedback:

This is the most discussed and the most important point. The developers must identify the issues the application is facing in all the stages of delivery in order to take corrective actions on time. DevOps team has to be vigilant and responsive to all the issues that arise at every step. In this fast-paced Mobile app development market, this is a must have key point.

Benefits of Agile and DevOps Integration

Enhanced client satisfaction and reduced time to market.
Improved delivery speed and efficiency.
Enhanced team cooperation and communication.
Increased focus on innovation and continuous development.
Ability to respond quickly to changing company needs.

Implementing Mobile DevOps: A Three-Step Guide

Organize Continuous Delivery and Integration

Integrate and track all code, scripts, documents, and configurations.
Ensure build consistency and version control for scripts.
Keep separate builds for each target platform.

Implement monitoring and testing

Use automated testing techniques to test the application.
Utilize virtual instances to test the app ecosystem more quickly and affordably.
Add a third-party SDK integration for ongoing app monitoring.

Concentrate on Delivery and Quality

Check code integrity at each level of development.
Monitor the app for any flaws and improve functionality.

Conclusion:

Mobile DevOps is a distinct software practice which is built on top of the traditional DevOps mechanism. It demands an extra attention to all the processes in order to produce a fast and quality software delivery, extraordinary application design and commendable user experience to facilitate success in the mobile application market. It carries a bigger picture by focusing more on the ‘business DevOps’ rather than just ‘DevOps’. To attain maximum DevOps Feat, the DevOps team has to be a step ahead in adopting new analytical approaches at every step of development and delivery. It has to be instinctive and provide continuous visibility to the delivery pipeline to gauge the ultimate app performance in the User market.

Choose pCloudy for your Mobile DevOps and Agile needs. Our cloud-based testing infrastructure offers comprehensive solutions that can help you to expand your target audience, enhance testing efficiency, and ensure the quality of your apps. With over 5000+ real devices and browser combinations, our platform provides Continuous Testing, DevOps, Advanced Automation, AI-based Visual testing, Robotic Process Automation, Real-time Test Analytics, and more. We also offer 24×7 support to help you address any concerns you might have. Don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss your Mobile DevOps and Agile needs today.

Priyanka Charak | Posted on February 16, 2023October 30, 2024 | 2 min Read

5 Reasons Why Appium is The Best Mobile Automation Testing Tool on Device Cloud

Why Appium is The Best?

With Appium creating a buzz in enterprise mobility, mobility teams are still finding ways to successfully automate tests leveraging Appium. Appium being an open source tool is the perfect choice for automating native, mobile web and hybrid applications on their respective platforms.

Let us now see the major factors behind Appium being the best choice for mobile automation tool:

Test App — An impressive expression by Appium.io showing why to choose Appium

1. Use of standard API: Appium is widely popular because modification of codes or a recompilation of your app is not required as it uses the standard API in all the platforms. Appium makes it effortless to create your tests against iOS and Android platforms with same API. But, separate iOS and Android scripts are still needed as the UI elements vary on both the platforms.

2. Use any WebDriver compatible language: Appium gives the freedom from getting locked into a particular language or framework to write and run the tests. Any WebDriver compatible language like Perl with Selenium WebDriver API, Java, PHP, C#, Python, Ruby, Javascript with Node.js can be used for writing the tests.

3. Testing Framework of Choice: Appium gives flexibility to mobility teams to use testing framework of their choice. Earlier, tests could only be written through Javascript using the UI Automation of library for Apple or Java based tests could only be written through UI Automator of Google. Appium completely changed this scenario.

4. Cross-platform test automation: Having the capabilities to test on both Android and iOS devices makes it the best cross-platform mobile app test automation tool. In order to interact with Android and iOS with Selenium WebDriver, Appium uses the JSON wire protocol. Appium makes use of the libraries provided by Apple with the help of an application called Instruments to automate iOS apps. In newer versions of iOS after v9.3, the Instruments api has been deprecated and now use XCUITest framework.
The method is similar in Android also where Appium proxies the automation command to the UIAutomator test case running on the device. Android has a native UI automation framework called UIAutomator which supports running JUnit test cases from the command line directly into the device.

5. Open Source: Being an open source testing framework is one of the biggest advantages of Appium as it supports Simulators, Emulators, real devices, and of course, native, hybrid and web application testing of iOS and Android. Appium having a large and thriving open community makes it easier for new automation engineers to clarify their doubts.

You can instigate test scripts created from Appium libraries locally, on a session reserved by the Cloud, for any iOS or Android device. Appium integrates with continuous integration servers to ensure better results and drives GUI-related widgets and controls, allowing the same scripts to run for different software versions of various apps. Appium can automate native, web and hybrid mobile apps, and you can test on a real device, a simulator, or an emulator. It also supports Safari on iOS and Chrome Mozilla or any built-in ‘Browser’ app on Android.
There are many automation tools for mobile application testing. Testers usually choose Appium as the best mobile testing tool. Mobile automation testing tools comparison can be done on the basis of language support and continuous integration. The most common automation testing tools used for mobile application testing are Appium, Robotium, and Calabash. If you are looking for iOS app automation testing tools then Appium and Calabash can do the job for you.

Here is tabular representation for you to understand Appium’s compatibility with different features and tools.

Why mobile device cloud with built-in Appium support?

Teams who are getting started with Automation or are considering Appium as an option, must explore an alternative to go for a mobile device cloud with built-in Appium.

A mobile device cloud not only assists in managing and sharing devices, but also helps in streamlining automated testing and continuous delivery processes. A mobile device cloud with built-in Appium makes it easy for teams to get started with automation and scale up later. Furthermore, it will give additional cushion against any sort of roadblock that might occur while using an open-source platform for tests. Let’s have a look at some of the benefits of having a built-in Appium support on a mobile device cloud:

Supports parallel testing on multiple devices
Reduces the complexity of test frameworks
Creation of appium scripts become easy
Streamlines the CI/CD process

At pCloudy, we are dedicated towards helping enterprise mobility teams make the process of mobile development, testing and device sharing seamless and faster by integrating it with cutting edge tools like Appium. Read this blog to get a comprehensive analysis sheet to quickly choose which open-source test automation tool will be right for your automation testing.

Sign up on pCloudy and automate your tests using best open source automation tool for faster and better delivery of apps.

For more information check out this video:

Priyanka Charak | Posted on July 23, 2020October 30, 2024 | 2 min Read

7 Steps To Use Mobile DevOps Tools Efficiently

In today’s organizational environment, ‘DevOps’ is the most used buzzword and has become a part of its agile software culture. Organization’s DevOps success is not a single goal approach; it requires deeper involvement for making a switch to DevOps. Broadly, it requires adoption of new DevOps automation tools, contemporary processes and cultural shift, especially in case of Mobile DevOps tools selection. A business has to be equipped with ever-evolving principles and DevOps automation tools in order to embrace these steps to successful DevOps test automation.

There are multiple Mobile DevOps Tools with different strengths contributing to a reliable Mobile DevOps process. Today, the businesses and the development teams are investing in intelligent systems that are capable of monitoring the production and development metrics in real-time. This acts as great deal for the development firms unless it covers all important aspects of the process allowing perfect optimization of the resources based on the reports.

The journey from planning, development, deployment and beyond, generally called ‘shift left’ process which is a part of continuous testing. In this approach, the testing is mostly focused on earlier stage of production life cycle aiming at delivering applications faster and with much lesser time and money. When it comes to mobile apps testing, the shift left approach works well because the application has to be tested well in order to perform well in the real-environment. In case of Mobile DevOps, using production environment to test the mobile application on real physical devices would help highlight and fix issues in the earlier phases of SDLC, reducing costs and time.

Gone are the days when testing was only executed as a final step of the processes where as nowadays, it has to be performed after every build, at every stage of the process. It is with the help of multi-step testing and maximum data capture after each test cycle, that the status of development and testing hasn’t been compromised enabling early bug-fixing and building more strong applications especially when this process is simplified with the help of DevOps automation tools. DevOps and Automation go hand in hand. Despite many challenges, it carries a much strategic role to bring the whole business making faster and better applications. A developer has to have a combination of agile development methods along with Mobile DevOps to win in mobile application; this can be achieved with the help of right DevOps automated testing tools.

Below are the 7 most common Process Steps with Mobile DevOps Tools:

CODE

Anything related to real development is related to continuous integration whether it is code development or code reviews. The way developers work today by collaborating; integrating all the things together is all a gift of the agile approach which is responsible for making continuous integration popular. With the adoption of continuous integration early stage issues are detected which ultimately reveals any integration glitches, faults in the code commits, etc. It generates a lot of data required for making right choices to be made by the developer as it showcases a lot of data about the mobile application that the developers can use to make the code better. This thus ultimately helps in estimating the scheduling and time consumption more accurately.

BUILD

Build is nothing but application components that are collected repeatedly and compiles for the purpose of testing to produce a reliable final software product. This is not a one-time job, instead it is a developer’s everyday task of creating various builds of applications. In Mobile DevOps scenario, in order to notify the status of the build, the developers use various version controls and source code management techniques. Software Engineers normally follow branching techniques in case of Mobile DevOps like no branching, release branching, maintenance branching and branching for features.

TEST

Testing is something that acts as a backbone of building a quality product. It is the QA team that is responsible of maintaining the sanity of the software, detecting errors early and quick bug fixing. Testing is the most integral aspect of SDLC. Considering the Continuous integration principles, automation testing needs to be automated in order to enjoy the seamless results i.e rich and flawless application. Testing in Mobile DevOps for a production environment should always be performed on real mobile devices and not on Simulators.

PACKAGE

Packaging in Mobile DevOps is already known. It is all about tools for package repositories and storage mechanisms for the binaries created during the software build. Binaries like scripts, configuration files and other files facilitate deployments; these are contained in the asset repositories. Continuous deployment eases the application testing and production with the help of automation, flawlessly. Packaging enables the releases of new versions and features of applications to the end-users.

RELEASE

In Mobile DevOps process, there are myriad of tools that are used in aiding in the process of CI/CD and continuous release. As a part of this, there are application release tools as well that help in packaging and deployment of an application right from the development to production, to be available to the final users using automation. Release management is a critical expertise which involves planning of every release and deployment by easy collaboration with the stakeholders. This is accomplished with the usage of release management tools that help stakeholders to plan and execute and trace the releases from a single platform.

CONFIGURE

Configuration is a second name to Infrastructure as a Service. Configuration tools enhance the cost-effectiveness and create applications with better flexibility and performance. The aim of this process step is to remove any unwanted manual configuration. In DevOps , the focus is on automation and collaboration, so configuration being a part of the ecosystem is also automated across various development flows.

MONITOR

Without valid data, no corrections and improvements can happen. Thus, monitoring becomes a very important aspect of the Mobile DevOps ensuring that the organizations get the right metrics about the processes, stage wise results and final outcome. Continuous monitoring allows stakeholders, developers, testers and other people involved, the access to right information for evaluation and decision making. This step is guide to all teams involved and has an impact on all the other steps. Thus making it a critical process step with Mobile DevOps tools.

Traditionally, the Process Steps involved planning, developing, testing and deploying but this is not it, there are many more aspects to it that are the key deciders in selecting the tools and how they fit together to enable tool flow in SDLC. DevOps test automation helps in achieving integrated development and delivery using the right combination of DevOps automated testing tools.

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Priyanka Charak | Posted on July 16, 2020December 5, 2024 | 2 min Read

How Continuous Testing in DevOps enables quality in the CI/CD Pipeline

We all understand the importance of software testing and how it transforms the goodwill of the business by enabling delivery of quality product to its clients in shorter delivery cycles. It becomes challenging to run the test cases manually by evaluating the quality of each line of code at every step of the continuous Delivery process. This is where Continuous testing in DevOps comes into picture.

Continuous testing in DevOps Pipeline

In traditional ways of testing the software used to pass through different development and QA phases which took more time until the final delivery of the product. According to a research by Gartner, Continuous testing in DevOps is aimed at providing early and quick detection of signs of risks related to the product release. DevOps Continuous Testing is an inevitable activity of the delivery process rather than just a mere stage in the delivery process. The main purpose is to inculcate quality into the CI/CD pipeline by utilizing the key benefits of continuous testing in DevOps.

DevOps Continuous testing is a critical aspect responsible for seamless Continuous Delivery. It involves the usage of agile development methods and processes into the QA process further providing a productive testing process.

Here are a few points to understand the benefits of Continuous testing in DevOps at the deeper levels:

a. Provides Sustained Risk Analysis:

There has never been any code build that is error free and in a ready-to-release form. Even if the final release candidate has come without any glitches, passes all the tests, it has to be ‘prepared well’ for the final release and approved by the business leaders. Continuous Testing evaluates the code at a deeper level to estimate all the possible risks connected to it so that a corrective action could be taken at the right time without breaking the ‘continuous delivery’ chain.

b. Cuts down the feedback cycle:

The key benefit of continuous testing is that it evaluates the code layer by layer at each stage of delivery pipeline, allowing testers to understand the source of the problem. The actionable insights helps the QA team to act on time and avoid longer queues

c. Broader Test Coverage:

A broad range of tests can be applied throughout the testing process with the help of continuous testing tools for DevOps such as Selenium, etc. It covers both functional and non-functional testing types to increase test coverage by emulating testing like cross-browser testing, API testing, regression testing, integrated testing, unit testing and non-functional testing like security, reliability, scalability, usability and many more.

d. Delivering High Quality Product:

‘Test-early-test-often’ is the key mantra of continuous testing which is self explicable. In order to ensure delivery of high-quality product to the end user, there needs to be a process to continuously monitor the progress along the entire delivery pipeline. Achieving high product quality is the result of continuous testing that strives to finding and addressing risks effectively and by gaining feedback at the early phases of software development lifecycle.

e. Faster Software Delivery:

The whole point of introducing Continuous Testing in DevOps is to speed up the product delivery cycle. Following a multi-point testing at different stages allows the QA team to detect the glitches early and take quick corrective actions so that the final delivery is not impacted.

f. Easy Integration with the DevOps Process:

Continuous testing seamlessly integrated with the DevOps process right from the early stages of the development process rather than functioning just before the release. Continuous integration into the software pipeline enables quick fixes so that the development process can be aligned with the business requirements on time.

Tools for continuous testing in DevOps

For a seamless experience in the entire CI CD process, Continuous testing has to be supported by the best tools for continuous testing in DevOps. For performing smooth Continuous Testing, the Automation Framework has to be integrated with the CI tool, version control and various automated continuous testing DevOps tools to execute different types of testing at various stages of the process. For example, :

Using Selenium for performing functional testing
Load runner for performing load testing at its best,
Secure code analysis using Fortify and static code analysis using Sonar, etc.

Apart from these there are many other trusted DevOps Continuous testing tools available in the market for an efficient continuous testing, like JIRA, Jenkins, Bamboo, Docker, Appium, SoapUI, PagerDuty, CodeCluster etc. The concern is that not all the tools support comprehensive automation solution. Some organizations prefer to create self-made automation frameworks depending upon the version control used to enable complete automation of the CD pipeline.

Since Continuous testing is the most critical aspect to be covered by the business in order to achieve quality product release, it has to be backed by the choice of right, suitable tools and frameworks to achieve speedy and quality delivery.

Challenges in DevOps Continuous Testing and how to overcome them

Even after understanding the advantages of adopting continuous testing in the DevOps process, many organizations face the challenges of successful implementation of it. Establishment of an efficient automation framework is a daunting deal as it involves a huge investment, expertise and effort. Moreover, the organizations are not equipped with the scalable infrastructure to run tests continuously. Also, without a strong coordination among the product, development and testing team, this seems even tougher. Although there are challenges in successful adoption of Continuous testing, with a little sensibility one can overcome it. Here are a few of the key points to comply in order to overcome the challenges :

By proper team engagement, the cultural and communication barriers can be dealt with enabling the SDLC team to have better coordination, collaboration and understanding of the scenarios.
Reducing unnecessary and extensive testing plans, the focus should be on keeping it simple and logical. Instead, the energy could be diverted to more important test objects in order to create much better measurable results.
Automation would ease the successful implementation of continuous testing in DevOps. Well, complete automation isn’t achievable but more the process automation, easier it becomes to carry on the continuous testing.
Carry out testing at all stages of production and QA environment would continuously providing feedback to developers to improvise on the product quality.
Last but not the least, implementing artificial intelligence and other intelligence programs for problem solving and to think beyond automation at every stage of delivery would boost up the SDLC.

By now we all know how significant continuous testing in DevOps for any business. It essentially brings together all the stages of designing, developing and deploying the software. Merely providing a software product does not help but providing best products faster than the competitors would be the key differentiator of your business. If practiced earnestly, it provides consistent insights about the software development to ensure speedy delivery.

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Priyanka Charak | Posted on January 17, 2019October 30, 2024 | 2 min Read

5 Reasons Why Testing is Incomplete Without Cross-browser Tests?

Cross-browser Tests

There has been tremendous growth in the usage of the web in the past years. Internet users rose from 3.5 billion in 2017 to 4.1 billion in the year 2018 as per internet world stats. Also, according to internet live stats, there are around 1.5 billion websites in the World Wide Web network today. The development team puts in a lot of effort in building a website so it is important that the website should work hassle-free on all the browsers, equally. Moreover, almost everyone is dependent on the content that exists on the internet. On top of that, the content is available in more than 3000 different internet-enabled devices which is what is to be focused here. More devices, more ways to view the websites. So, here the real concern is-are all the users using different devices, able to view the website the way it is intended?

What is Cross-Browser Testing?
As the web grows, new technologies, tools to build the websites are also introduced simultaneously. But not all are browser compatible technologies. So, for browser compatibility testing, a developer needs to perform cross browser testing. It is nothing but to perform multiple browser testing for web applications and checking its compatibility with different operating systems, screen resolutions and devices to find out if it meets the developer’s expectations. When it is about web applications, it is an important task to ensure they are fully functional across multi-browser settings and it provides a good experience to the users, irrespective of the device and the browser they use. Browser test is a ‘must-have’ because there are chances that the users might not come back once they face any problem or do not get good site experience.

Let us understand more deeply as in why Cross Browser Testing is important and what purpose it serves.
1. Every Browser interprets differently:
Every browser is different and carries a unique ability to interpret things differently i.e not all the codes are understood by different browsers in the same way. So, a coder must ensure that all the browsers interpret the commands in a similar way to give the intended user experience through the website. Also, since there are multiple browsers with different versions, it becomes challenging to know if the website works well on all versions. Cross browser testing tools help in testing multiple browser and its different versions.

2. Different Mobile Platforms:

One of the main reasons why Cross browsing Test has become important is because of different mobile platforms available today. Multiple mobile devices are launched every year so it is imperative for a mobile website to open properly on each device correctly. There are different sets of browser combinations preferred by the users so the organizations can focus on those combinations of proper functioning on mobile devices. Testing teams need to test on different mobile browser versions because it becomes challenging to understand which version the user is using. Even the CSS runs differently on each version so cross-browser testing tools can check the same easily.

3. Fewer Bugs:
Cross-Browser testing is one of the rigorous tasks that the QA team has to perform but at the same time, it is a great move to introduce this practice because this would reduce time in testing across different browsers, simultaneously. To make every minute component and feature function properly and to avoid any last-minute complications and bugs, cross-browser testing should be performed to make sure all browsers and its versions are functioning correctly on all platforms. Web traffic data can be helpful to understand what browsers our users use frequently which can be used as information to focus only on important parts of testing.

4.Re-usable tests :
With Cross Browser testing, there’s no need for creating and maintain separate browser tests for each browser platform. The tests can be reused in different supported browsers with the help of different test automation technologies. The cross-browser tests can be created by custom scripts apart from the cases where the custom solution fails.

5. Free tools available:
There are many free tools available to perform web and mobile automation such as Selenium WebDriver and Appium. Most of the cross-browser test automation tools are based on open source automation tool i.e. Selenium which has a great User Interface making it easier to perform cross browser testing on multiple browsers.
There are many widely used web browsers, but not all browsers, and versions of those browsers work the same. A website may not look or function identically on each one, which can lead to lost revenue for an enterprise. We at pCloudy addressed the issue of choosing from the fixed set of browsers previously available. Heeding to the growing demands of our users, we have introduced the Launch and Upload browser feature for our Android users which will give him the freedom to choose the version of the browser that he wants to use. This is going to save their testing time and efforts to a great extent and also give better results for their cross browser test. For more information, visit pCloudy

Priyanka Charak | Posted on January 9, 2019August 12, 2019 | 2 min Read

Mobile Application Testing Trends in 2019

Trends in 2019

The mobile devices and applications have witnessed a constant progress in the year 2018 making the mobile app industry one of the largest. The burgeoning number of mobile apps can be seen in 3rd quarter statistics of the year 2018 with the numbers rising to 2.1 million for android based and 2 million for iOS based mobile apps. The mobile apps industry is estimated to generate approximately USD 189 Billion by 2020 according to Statista Research. Considering how greatly the mobile app market has grown in the past year, the mobile application testing trends in 2019 seems to bring out even the better version of the former .

With the innovative technologies introduced every year, the users and developers of mobile app ought to get the updated and enhanced versions of mobile apps which can be achieved through steady Mobile App test automation and deployment. Few trends that can be seen in 2019 are as follows:

1. Machine learning and AI in testing:
Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence in Testing has already been the talk of the town in 2018. It is going to bring revolution in the mobile testing world by bringing changes in the processes and workflows of the testing cycle. It is going to be used for test suite optimization to identify the inessential and unique tests. It is also going to be a great contributor in the predictive analysis of the test cases. Machine learning would also be responsible to perform log analytics meaning to identify the test cases that need to be executed automatically.

AI has already made its stand in mobile apps space by manifesting itself in the form of bots and virtual assistants. Artificial Intelligence in testing platform would certainly recognize any changes faster than a human along with the constant updates in the algorithms. Most importantly, it is going to be used to identify risks areas of the mobile application in order to prioritize regression testing. The growing demand for quality at speed is forcing enterprise mobility to test faster than ever. Automation testing alone is just not enough. AI powered bot tests to run deep exploratory tests or crash tests in lesser time with enhanced quality reports can solve the purpose.

pCloudy has launched Certifaya which is the AI-powered app testing bot which automatically tests the mobile apps over multiple devices giving the real-time insights about the app behavior and performance to its users. It also allows screenshots, session videos as well as provides detailed logs and quick fix rectification recommendations. It has analytics-driven testing engine uses machine learning algorithms to navigate through the app and detect issues. It also allows to generate reports on the critical issues like crashes, leaks , slow response time etc.

2. Popularity of IOT:
Just as AI in testing is gaining popularity, IOT is also gaining momentum alongside with more and more devices getting connected to the internet. With the introduction of IOT, IOT testing will make more sense. IOT testing would be applied on the IOT based devices to test the usability, compatibility of the IOT system; for the simulation of the sensors, for data validation integrity; for user authentication and data privacy, and finally test the performance of the connect IOT devices.

3. Impact of 5G: 5G will be the 5th generation of the mobile network. Move from 4G to 5G is a great shift in the network ecosystem. It will be responsible for greatest bandwidth for uploads and downloads.

eMBB (Enhanced mobile broadband) The introduction of 5G networks in the mobile devices is going to present the advantages of high speed, security, and reliability than ever. According to statista, there is going to be around 20 to 100 million 5G connections by 2021.Test automation, built in systems and monitoring would be required to test the 5G powered mobile apps by analyzing the performance of the network. Along with 5G, 3GPP identifies three main aspects of 5G technology that co-exist in the same network infrastructure, namely:

-eMBB: provides greater bandwidth for uploads and download speeds , reduced network latency and will enable rich media apps like mobile AR/VR and 360 degree video streaming.

-URLCC(Ultra Reliable Low Latency communications): URLCC provides benefits like , real time virtual reality gaming, robot-enabled remote surgery, autonomous driving, factory lien automation etc. The technologies that enable URLCC are in the process of being standardized and will enable high end latency sensitive tasks.

Massive Machine Type Communication: It is a narrowband access type to sense, meter and monitor the use cases.
Undoubtedly 5G is a paradigm shift towards user and application technology framework and testing the overall communication behavior of the devices would be the key focus in the testing space related to 5G.

4. Performance testing to performance engineering:
There are many factors like usability, performance, security, hardware, software, configuration, etc. that contribute towards the performance of a mobile app. Now , the performance testing will not be about running the test scripts, rather it will be focused on prioritizing the factors and analyzing the highest value amongst them in order to deliver the high quality product.

5. Manual and Automation merger :
This practice has been followed in the previous times and it will be carried forward even in 2019 due to the combined benefits of both the types of testing. Although manual testing dominates the market specifically in the areas of usability and design, but it will still go hand in hand with the efficiency of mobile automation. We have already initiated that with our breakthrough feature Follow Me where we have tried to automate the use cases of manual app testing on multiple devices.

6. Shorter Delivery Cycle:
Up gradations in the technologies and the devices makes the software developers think a bit more about the development process i.e to shorten the delivery cycle. The choice of right mobile app testing tools and test management is going to play a major role in these decisions.

7. Cloud Apps:
Cloud apps have always been a part of the successful quality assurance decisions. Focus will be more on building the cloud apps that require minimum operational costs and high productivity. In 2019, it is estimated that the number of cloud based apps will increase from $30 Billion in 2014 to $66 Billion in 2019 and so would be the need for the cloud based testing for the cloud mobile apps.

The above stated trends would help testing team to acquire right skills and tools for investing time and effort to the right focus area. Smartphones being the future also allows the mobile apps to be a part of the process. Hence, making it noteworthy for the upcoming generations. To stay ahead of the challenging environment, one must be aware of the above trends in Mobile App Testing in 2019.

Priyanka Charak | Posted on November 13, 2018August 1, 2019 | 2 min Read

Top 5 Tips for Successful Mobile Application Testing

Successful 5 Tips

There are millions of mobile apps available in the market today. The statistics shows that since 2016, on an average around 6000 apps on Google play store and 1400 on the Apple store have been released every day. In order to be hassle free and to be on top of the competitors, an app needs to be stable and be properly tested.

Testing on mobile devices could be very challenging as it has to constantly be in touch with the new updates, new features and a myriad of DevOps tools that get introduced every time to ensure better performance and reliability of the mobile app.

Hence, there are many factors that have to be considered while framing the testing strategy in order to avoid all kinds of uncertainties in the app performance, just needs a right planning.

Below are five strategies every mobile testing team should keep in mind in order to reap the most benefits from their QA efforts.

1. Real Environment Testing is a must
2. Testing Automation
3. Functionality Testing
4. Performance and Load Testing
5. Choice of Mobile App Testing Tools

1. Real environment testing is a must

Emulators are the best option only at the early stage of testing, and they have a vital place in the overall QA process. But testing on emulators is not successful for all types of testing. All the tests should not run on emulators as those will not be reliable for an app to run immaculately in the real world scenario. Testing on the real devices is certainly more accurate as it can test many device functionalities like camera operations, battery life, GPS, Bluetooth, networks and more. Each device is designed differently and emulators do not solve issues specific to a particular type of device.

Procuring multiple devices and testing the app on each Operating System can be quite a daunting task and it may seem next to impossible to test the app on every OS combination. The best way would be to test apps on a cloud based platform with a hub of real devices. This way your testing results would be more precise and the procurement cost could be controlled. pCloudy has a wide variety of mobile devices available on cloud that can be considered as the preferred option.

2. Testing Automation

Automation testing is the key and the most vital when it comes to mobile apps. It can ease the execution of tests to run simultaneously across real devices which speeds up the entire testing process allowing the apps to float in the market quite earlier and faster. In the cases where the tests require a lot of set up and aren’t the routine tests, manual testing should be preferred over automation. Mobile Automation testing necessitates the use of right automation tools. The choicest one is Appium which is open source and supports both iOS and Android and also allows to write the tests that can run on both the platforms.

3. Functionality testing

The core functionality is the main draw for any app and it has to be rock solid. People seek out apps to perform specific functions. Incomplete or inadequate functionality will result in abandonment, so make sure that the main functions are fully implemented and tested before you move on. User experience really matters and is also a key factor in an app’s success. For example, if the elements of the app are placed incorrectly on the mobile screen, the user will not use the app and uninstall it straightaway. So, the mobile app needs to be tested on each functionality in order to give the best results.

4. Performance and Load Testing

Usual tests are performed at earlier stages to identify the bugs even before they are pushed for production but the performance and load tests are performed later in the SDLC process to assess the maximum operating capacity and behavior of a mobile app in real life load scenarios. Tools like JMeter and Android’s Monkey tool are often used for performance and load testing. Also, the app performance on real devices is done in order to check the issues like network interruptions, memory leaks. Whatever the choice of tool may be, the goal is to ensure the smooth functioning of the app before and after the final release.

The Internet speed can also have a major impact on the experience of using an app. A user connected to a slow cellular network might have a hard time with apps that have rich media content. Make sure your app testing includes slow connections — and fast ones — to make sure the experience is OK at any speed.

5. Choice of Mobile app testing tools

It is very important to choose the right tool for mobile app testing. There are many favored mobile app testing tools to do the right testing.

Out of the meagre tools available in the market, Appium tops the list of the most preferred open source mobile testing tool in the market. Other than this, the tools like Robotium and Espresso which are used widely to test the Android apps by empowering the testers to write UI tests for Android Apps, easily. Google’s EarlGrey performs the similar function as Robotium for iOS framework.

Conclusion

To conclude, we must acknowledge that the decisions related to successful mobile app testing is the key role of the testing team. Testing landscapes keep changing and the testing strategies have to be aligned with the vulnerabilities of the market. It can be deduced from the above discussion that both emulators and the real devices are needed as per the testing situation. Performance and load testing are the saviors and must be performed sincerely in the production to understand the reaction of the mobile apps at different load conditions. There should be a right combination of the testing tools as per the type of operating system where the app has to be installed. To make the Mobile app testing a success, the right decision-matrix regarding the above mentioned points would prove to be the strongest pillar of the QA team of an organization. To know more about the mobile app testing success, visit www.pcloudy.com.

Test Automation

Test Infrastructure

Test Management

Category Page

What is Continuous Testing?

Key Features of Continuous Testing:

Challenges to an Effective Continuous Testing Strategy

8 Tips to Optimize your Continuous Testing Strategy

1. Complete Test Automation Strategy

2. Streamlined Initial Test Process

3. Choosing the best test automation tool

4. Modularizing tests

5. Leveraging Automated Screenshots

6. Optimizing Test Automation ROI

7. Tracking and Monitoring

8. Benefits of Outsourcing QA

Comprehensive Test Coverage

Appium Mobile Test Automation

Continuous Integration Tools

1. Jenkins

2. Buddy

3.TeamCity

4. Bamboo CI

5.GitLab CI

7.Codeship

8. Cruise Control

9. BuildBot

10. GoCD

Conclusion

Mobile Devops+Agile Keys to Success

Benefits of Agile and DevOps Integration

Implementing Mobile DevOps: A Three-Step Guide

Organize Continuous Delivery and Integration

Implement monitoring and testing

Concentrate on Delivery and Quality

Why Appium is The Best?

Here is tabular representation for you to understand Appium’s compatibility with different features and tools.

Below are the 7 most common Process Steps with Mobile DevOps Tools:

CODE

BUILD

TEST

PACKAGE

RELEASE

CONFIGURE

MONITOR

Continuous testing in DevOps Pipeline

Tools for continuous testing in DevOps

Challenges in DevOps Continuous Testing and how to overcome them

Cross-browser Tests

Trends in 2019

Successful 5 Tips