5 DevOps and Testing Videos to Binge Watch – InApps 2022

Software testing has too often been undervalued, left too late to deliver the fast feedback that DevOps demands. But with the DevOps revolution wave only getting bigger, the tide has changed — making the shift-left approach fundamental. When quality testing is strategically woven into release cycles, you deliver better software faster and more frequently.

How is testing championed exactly? In these Tricentis Virtual Summit videos, tech giants Microsoft and Dell walk us through their DevOps transformations. The videos give us a demonstration of AI-powered testing, and offer a lens into future transformative tools. The speakers are refreshingly human and openly transparent about their challenges, with some intriguing analogies (diving, cycling, magic carpets…) along the way.

You can watch more talks like this at the next Tricentis Virtual Summit, on April 13-15.

Quality in a Cloud DevOps World with Microsoft 

Abel Wang, principal cloud advocate and DevOps lead at Microsoft, shows us how Microsoft began a huge DevOps shift in 2010, which led to its cloud leadership position today. The company switched from releasing new software versions every three years to every three weeks. Now, “like clockwork, new code just magically shows up in Azure DevOps services, and customers magically get it.”

This magic has not been without mayhem, and Wang does not gloss over the highly disruptive transition. Developers and testers had to be upskilled and quality became everyone’s responsibility, with developers building it into their applications as they code. It was vital to ramp up unit testing and extensive code reviews are now a given.

It’s evident that Microsoft’s huge upheaval to transition to the cloud was worth it; we’re reminded that teams that adopt DevOps best practices have a four to five times higher revenue growth.

Grab some popcorn and watch Abel’s compelling talk. It’s likely you’ll start evaluating your testing methods on a scale of 0 to “DevOpsy” too. It’s contagious!

A Shallow Talk on Deep Testing

Michael Bolton, founder at DevelopSense, piques your interest from the offset with the question “how well have you done testing?” We’re asked to brainstorm a list of words that come before testing, and very few (if any) indicating quality sprang to mind. In a bid to switch the status quo, Michael walks us through the valuable concepts of shallow and deep testing.

Michael runs through the logic of when to apply each, based on your particular DevOps use case. Deep testing is a time investment, where “we endeavor to find the subtle, the hidden, the challenging, the complex, the intermittent, and the emergent bugs.” But is that always necessary? Shallow testing has its place too and has every chance of catching bugs.

Weigh up shallow vs. deep testing with Michael’s talk.

Vision AI: The Third Era of Test Automation 

AI has entered the testing world with a bang. Gerta Sheganaku, product engagement manager at Tricentis, eases us into this new era of test automation with the comfort that AI is not here to replace us, but rather to assist us. We learn that Vision AI combines AI and Machine Learning to visualize and drive any UI, as humans do, but leaving room for the fun bits of testing.

We’re assured that Vision AI “empowers the tester to create more tests, to achieve better coverage, deliver greater value, and gets rid of those coding issues and maintaining frameworks. The tester is finally freed!”

From incorporating self-healing technology to overcome testing fragility, to making it technically simpler by removing the need to operate at code level, Vision AI looks to be the ideal emancipator.

See Vision AI in action in this eye-opening talk.

Dell ISG’s Path to DevOps with “Continuous X”

When Dell started rolling out their DevOps approach, they knew that scaling across 50+ products and 10,000+ staff wasn’t going to be straightforward. Adam Arakelian, director of software engineering at Dell, shares how they succeeded by adopting a shared mentality instead of applying a specific methodology.

With this philosophy-first culture driven by goals and values, Adam describes how Dell went on to realize its goals in a customized CI/CD/CT platform. All stakeholders both consume and build on this architecture as requirements change: “From a ‘Continuous X’ perspective, we are always driving to improve how we look at our continuous integration or our continuous delivery. That’s one of the main mantras that helped us drive this adoption forward.” Adam explains how Tricentis qTest has been instrumental in Dell’s continuous testing practice, by facilitating a single architectural workflow.

This talk is full of practical advice to help kick-off and scale a top-notch DevOps adoption.

The Future of Testing Tooling 

Last but not least, dare to dream with Dr. Grigori Melnik, CPO at Tricentis, and James Bach, Tricentis technical fellow and founder/CEO of Satisfice. This talk covers how Tricentis aspires to meet the needs and desires of business leaders and testers alike, without the shackles of drudgery and underappreciation.

One vital pillar of the Tricentis vision is the integrated test environment (ITE), which Grigori calls home — “where the tester can live and do everything they need.” Nothing gets past James Bach (a self-proclaimed critic), so you can bet that his ITE wish list has been evaluated extensively. He demands that “our system needs to have the ability to take any kind of data, and then allow us to evolve that data into specific kinds of structures.” Progressive formulization and journaling are a couple of the enticing features James explores.

See what’s on the horizon for Tricentis and the testing community.

Keeping the DevOps Testing Talks Coming

Testing challenges aren’t shied away from in these talks. They’re tackled head-on by smart people with sophisticated strategies. These videos are best watched back to (James) Bach.

If you like what you see, sign up for the next Tricentis Virtual Summit.

InApps is a wholly owned subsidiary of Insight Partners, an investor in the following companies mentioned in this article: Tricentis.

Feature image via Pixabay.