Why you must consider DevOps for your Microservices Testing?

Microservices or Microservices architecture (MSA) has been considered as an asset, especially, in the current phase of Digital Transformation. As applications get complex, Microservices architecture breaks down massive applications into smaller fragments that are much more manageable. Hence, instead of working on the application as a whole, teams work on parts and eventually integrate with language agnostic protocols. Different teams work on smaller independent services, enabling superior scalable systems, inducing productivity, and ultimately faster time to market. While the architecture delivers effectively in the Application Development process, how can DevOps add value for testing Microservices architecture?

Why Microservices Architecture?

Do one thing, but do it well!

It is probably the philosophy running behind the concept of Microservices Architecture. It helps support consumer experience, brings transparency, and makes the business proposition much more scalable. Agility being the norm of the day, is needed to ensure smooth delivery at speed. Additionally, stronger security patches can be added and tested across the entire range of the application.

This helps businesses to stay competent and responsive to market changes, augmenting the digital transformation efforts. It offers opportunities to even enhance service offerings by adding value to the existing service structure. For instance, it’s a mobile gaming application with a range of stages that need a constant revamp. Instead of taking down the entire application at a time, teams can take on various stages and rejig the software in bits.

Cloud Adoption has been a catalyst for the growth of Microservices architecture market, as it is needed for mainly working on enterprise business applications. Eventually, it has moved to various other segments such as wearables, smartphones, connected devices, smart home appliances, and related software development.

Technologies such as AI, Robotics, and VR are getting tested. These concepts need constant updates, but in fractions, as they keep evolving. Microservices architecture is needed to connect and interact with other third party services, REST API (Representational State Transfer Application Program Interface), to deploy any services in the application’s evolving lifecycle.

Practically, it is a bunch of loosely coupled services with light-weight protocols. It is a supporting concept for organizations that need to further grow their technology stack. It facilitates teams to mature with the progressing consumer scenario. Hence, Microservices Testing is a key area and it would be interesting to address it in the backdrop of DevOps growth and benefits it brings.

Why to consider DevOps for Microservices Testing?

DevOps as an approach and practice has been adding value for enterprises, especially, with Continuous Testing and Continuous Development. The focus is not just on Speed, but also on ensuring Quality. DevOps tools are deployed to effectively track various quality metrics and project development. Transparency and communication are the ruling fundamentals of the practice. So, what’s the value that we see with DevOps in Microservices Testing?

Decentralization brings value to the Development process

The Microservices Architecture is all about breaking down a monolithic application and decentralizing the development activity with separate teams. DevOps compliments this pattern by enabling the decentralization process and making individual teams responsible for the outcome.

This helps in reducing duplication of work, overhead costs, and triggering more innovation. Smaller teams can work at their pace and control what could be and what should be delivered. Distributed efforts bring down the chances of failure, as accountability for delivering a quality software is on each person.

Release services independently without overall dependencies

As we can see, decentralization is the norm of the hour, and it’s working for enterprises, as the need for speed doesn’t cease to exist. It also means that there is less dependency on the overriding factors to deliver your bit in the development cycle. This is a pattern that can be adopted for delivering Enterprise Applications that can be extensive, where changes can happen at a micro level without impacting the overall flow.

Just that, Continuous Delivery pipelines should be in smooth motion. Moreover, this can foster innovation, and build the much needed resilience with the application and software. Automation in testing cuts down the efforts and makes the process error-free.

You are equipped to reach faster to the market and beat competition

Businesses intend to trigger an ‘avalanche’ with their applications and business propositions in the competitive marketplace. So, if you miss the bus due to some routine development crisis, it can bring shame to the brand and the big plans. There is no option for faster delivery to beat the competition. Continuous Development and Testing is needed for Continuous Integration and Deployment.

The idea of fragmenting and decentralizing the activity, helps to successfully bring together the various granules in a monolithic application. As the activity happens on a continuous basis, there is no need to stop or consider a downtime. Everything is just happening in real-time. This adds tremendous business value to the software development and delivery process. As testing happens in real time alongside development, any kind of uncertainties with the application are also discarded.

In Conclusion

Any process that demands decentralization must focus on collaboration, communication, transparency, but with segmented responsibility to deliver. DevOps involves parallel execution of individual tests, collation of test data, and test configuration activities. There would be addition of new test cases and test data archival as well.

Microservices architecture testing comprises all these activities, but needs a supporting methodology. DevOps blends into all the requirements for MSA testing. It gives scope for innovation and experimentation in a scenario where customer experience and delight is of utmost significance. It further fosters growth and Digital Transformation.

Ultimately, it is an evolving process, and an overriding test strategy always adds value to help the process mature. What do you think?

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At Cigniti, we standardize efforts and ensure accelerated time to market with DevOps Testing. Connect with us to know more about our expertise in DevOps.