DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports
Events Video Library
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. Join Today! Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile Manage Email Subscriptions Moderation Admin Console How to Post to DZone Article Submission Guidelines
View Profile
Sign Out
Refcards
Trend Reports
Events
View Events Video Library
Zones
Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks

Integrating PostgreSQL Databases with ANF: Join this workshop to learn how to create a PostgreSQL server using Instaclustr’s managed service

Mobile Database Essentials: Assess data needs, storage requirements, and more when leveraging databases for cloud and edge applications.

Monitoring and Observability for LLMs: Datadog and Google Cloud discuss how to achieve optimal AI model performance.

Automated Testing: The latest on architecture, TDD, and the benefits of AI and low-code tools.

Related

  • AI-Led Digital Strategies for Agile Product Development
  • The Top Cybersecurity Risks in Agile Software Development
  • Custom Software vs. Readymade Software
  • Agile Software Life Cycle, Methodology, and Examples

Trending

  • Writing Reusable SQL Queries for Your Application With DbVisualizer Scripts
  • Memory Management in Java: An Introduction
  • Selecting the Right Automated Tests
  • Effective Tips for Debugging Complex Code in Java
  1. DZone
  2. Culture and Methodologies
  3. Agile
  4. Not Convinced Yet About Shift-Left Testing?

Not Convinced Yet About Shift-Left Testing?

With Agile and DevOps methodologies rapidly increasing in popularity, shifting left is the answer to how Quality Assurance fits in.

Sofia Palamarchuk user avatar by
Sofia Palamarchuk
·
Jan. 24, 17 · Opinion
Like (3)
Save
Tweet
Share
5.46K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

If you work in the software industry, you’ve most likely heard about “shift-left testing” from conferences, blog posts, industry publications, co-workers, etc. With Agile methodologies (including TDD, BDD, and CI) and DevOps increasing in popularity, “shift-left” is the answer to how QA fits in, making them a reality in your organization rather than merely aspirations. Making this shift changes the view of testing. Instead of traditional QA, it transforms into QE: Quality Engineering.

What Is Shift-Left Testing?

Shift-left testing refers to the integration of testing activities with development, beginning sooner in the development cycle rather than later as it is in traditional software development environments like Waterfall.

This means working together with development and operations and analyzing quality during every stage of development as shown in the graphic below.

Artboard 1-minFor example, testers have to jump in and take a more proactive role even before development starts by being present during the gathering of requirements.

Other activities include:

  • Testers helping developers implement unit testing.

  • Planning, creating, and automating integration test cases.

  • Planning, creating, and employing virtualized services at every stage and component level.

  • Gathering, prioritizing, and processing feedback.

Some process changes that occur during the shift may include the following:

  • Instead of waiting weeks to add code to that of the rest of the team, do it every day, or even several times a day.

  • Instead of manually performing all the tests, automate and run them every day or even several times a day.

  • Instead of detecting problems at the end, analyze quality as the development progresses.

Why Make the Shift?

In this post, we’ll provide three main benefits of shifting left: reducing costs, increasing efficiency and quality, and gaining a competitive edge.

shift-left testing benefits

1. Reduce the Cost of Testing and Development

It is still true what Larry Smith said over 15 years ago when the “shift-left” concept was first introduced:

“Bugs are cheap when caught young.”

One of the aims of Agile testing is detecting errors as soon as possible. What we mean by as soon as possible is as soon as possible after the exact moment in which the error was inserted into the system.

When testing is done with every build (especially during unit testing), the errors that are found are smaller, easier to detect and locate, and less costly to fix. Assuring the quality as we go also means eliminating the tremendous costs and the unnecessary work of having to go back and re-do certain things.

2. Increase Efficiency and Quality

We often find that the increased levels of automation when shifting left allows for:

  • Increasing test coverage by running more tests in the same amount of time.

  • Freeing up time for testers to focus on more challenging and rewarding tasks.

  • Reducing human error.

  • Monitoring performance over time.

  • Code quality checks.

  • Built-in security checks.

  • Reducing issues in production (that users will face).

Beyond these benefits, being able to start testing sooner invariably results in more quality, as testers are not rushed to find all the errors at the end, only leaving whatever time is left to spare for them.

3. Gain a Competitive Edge

Shifting left your QA gives you a competitive edge in two ways: speed up time-to-market and attract top talent.

About staying competitive in today’s ever-changing technological landscape, Alon Girmonsky, founder of BlazeMeter (acquired by CA Technologies), said it best:

As we can all agree that it is important to deliver software more quickly, it also shouldn’t be rushed out the door. Shift-left testing answers the problem of accelerating development without sacrificing quality.

Secondly, shift-left testing is what software developers and test engineers expect today of their organization, officially becoming mainstream with over 66% of IT workers reportedly using Agile or “leaning towards Agile” methods.

From Zephyr’s latest report, “How the World Tests 2016,” the number of respondents who use Agile/Scrum, Waterfall, or a hybrid of the these are shown in this diagram:

Agile, Scrum, Hybrid, Waterfall diagramIt’s not surprising that one of the key findings of the State of Software Testing Report 2015-2016 was that 55% of testers reported they were already doing or wanted to implement continuous testing and Continuous Integration.

Therefore, if you want to be an attractive employer or at least be on par with the rest, it is important to adopt the modern practices that both testers and developers want to master in order to stay relevant in today’s labor market.

When Shift-Left Testing Doesn’t Work

Maybe you have heard all of those benefits already but are still not convinced about shift-left testing for this reason: you’ve seen that even Agile teams can face the same bottlenecks as seen in Waterfall.

For example, as Shridhar Mittal, former GM of Application Delivery at CA Technologies, explains:

“Due to the complexity of environments and composite applications, Agile teams are often stuck waiting in a queue once all of the pieces come together in the performance and user acceptance testing phases.”

The solution he provides that we agree with is utilizing service virtualization. Service virtualization emulates the behavior of essential components that will be present in production, enabling integration tests to take place much earlier in development. This is how you can eliminate that key bottleneck, while also benefitting from eliminating errors earlier on.

Along with service virtualization, you have several tools to setup your automated systems and CI such as Jenkins, CruiseControl, Bamboo and TeamCity, which all have web management interfaces. Or, you could go with a cloud solution like Amazon Pipeline Code, TravisCI, CircleCI, Codeship and Microsoft’s Visual Studio Team Services.

One Important Note

Just having these tools in place does not ensure a successful shift and does not imply quality engineering. There are several preconditions and a level of testing maturity that must be reached in order to achieve continuous, Agile, shift-left testing. For example, a precondition for test automation would be having the appropriate test environments set up. Without this and several other preconditions, your shifting of QA to the left will be problematic, at the least.

Wrapping Up

With Agile being the norm, shift-left testing is a key enabler for increasing quality and efficiency, reducing costs and risks, and staying competitive. In shift-left testing, everyone becomes a quality engineer and the responsibility for producing high-quality software is equally shared among the team.

This ultimately results in a better product, shipped even faster.

Who wouldn’t want that?

agile Software development integration test

Published at DZone with permission of Sofia Palamarchuk, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Related

  • AI-Led Digital Strategies for Agile Product Development
  • The Top Cybersecurity Risks in Agile Software Development
  • Custom Software vs. Readymade Software
  • Agile Software Life Cycle, Methodology, and Examples

Comments

Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 3343 Perimeter Hill Drive
  • Suite 100
  • Nashville, TN 37211
  • support@dzone.com

Let's be friends: