Introduction
A technical definition of Agility refers to a method of project management which is characterized by the division of tasks into short modules, reassessing it frequently and adapting to variations accordingly. Agile methods replace complex designs with repeated redesigns. One of the most challenging issues for software development is to meet the demands for speed and agility. This has pushed for the implementation Agile development methods. Agile implements method that supports its manifesto which states:
“Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan.”
DevOps, a word formed by merging ‘Development’ and ‘Operation’, is a software application development method that focuses on communication, collaboration, automation, integration and cooperation between the developers and other professionals involved. It completely redefines the development and delivery timeline by bringing together the teams of Development, QA and Operations. This increases the deployment frequency, maintenance releases and improves the reliability and security of the application as the quality assurance testers are involved at every stage of the lifecycle.
Thus, the DevOps and Agile Methodology follow the same principle of continuous integration and continuous testing in the System Development Life Cycle. DevOps bring together the Developers and Operations team together. Agile development pressurizes the Operations team more for deployment of code frequently. To achieve this, DevOps team maintains a cross-silo collaboration of teams constantly. Hence, Operations is not considered as a separate unit but a part of the entire development life cycle. In this way, the operations team get a clear understanding of how the entire application works before it is actually deployed.
To implement the above methodology more efficiently with low lead times for faster deployment and testing, LeanFT comes into consideration.
HP LeanFT, an automated, functional, light weight testing tool specifically built to aid the DevOps and Agile strategy thus enabling continuous testing and delivery. It helps by providing a detailed flow of test execution and pointing out the main reasons for the failure of the test. LeanFT carries forward the concepts of UFT and gives more power to the developers by providing extended features.
LeanFT helps Agile and DevOps Team to shift left. It seamlessly fits into prevailing eco-systems and Cucumber, Visual Studio, C#, Java, Git, Jenkins, Eclipse testing frameworks with powerful and flexible test scripts and IDE integration. Thus, the developers and testers can optimize their scripts and improve their maintenance.
LeanFT supports almost all common AUT (Application Unit Testing) tools like SAP, Windows, Java, Mobiles and .Net. It integrates fully with the popular IDEs and allows code scripting in familiar languages. Hence the requirement for new system requirement does not arise and usage of the same tools can be continued.
Both Lean and Agile methodology emphasize proper planning and a user centric approach. Agile methodology has segregated the system development life cycle, thus conceptualizing Shift-left which is the practice of integration and testing at every step of the development life cycle. LeanFT supports the features of Agile and DevOps which facilitate the collaboration of developers and testers resulting into accelerated development cycles.
LeanFT is mainly targeted for dev-testers in Agile teams, Test Automation Engineers and Subject Matter Experts and fully integrates with the development and Quality Assurance Eco Systems.
Conclusion:
LeanFT is directly accessible from UFT12.5, the new extended version of UFT. It can also be implemented as a standalone solution. Implementing LeanFT is easier with prior knowledge of Unified Functional Testing (HP UFT). LeanFT helps to assess and rectify the defects in the processes at an early stage, thus decreasing the deployment time line.
