Having said that, the next stage in software development model evolution is already here – in the form of GitOps. As cloud-native app development gains popularity, there is a greater need for simplifying cloud infrastructure management. GitOps uses Git, an open-source version control system (VCS), for application and infrastructure configuration management and thrives on the DevOps ecosystem and culture.

Today, both GitOps and DevOps are facilitating collaboration between development and ops teams and making the development process more efficient. Where they differ is in the approach to achieving this goal. Git provides developers with a unified view of the source code. It stores all changes in a central location, which enables easy auditing and tracking of any modifications to the system. For example, with Git, it’s easy to track application updates and infrastructure configurations. Git also allows teams to revert to an earlier commit without compromising on quality. It ensures continuous delivery, deployment, and version control of applications as well as infrastructure as code and deployments.

GitOps can be used independently or as an extension of DevOps. Incorporating Git in the DevOps software delivery process improves the orchestration of projects, enabling efficient and reliable development and delivery of software applications.

For instance, Deutsche Telekom, a multinational telco group that has more than 220,000 employees working across offices in 50 countries, built a multi-site, multicluster, multi-infrastructure, Kubernetes engine using open-source technologies. It manages several hundred clusters by combining GitOps and the declarative system with Kubernetes. This allows scaling up based on need faster and at no additional cost.

Read this insightful article on the Top 5 Tools for API Integration in Modern Cloud-Based Applications.

GitOps vs DevOps

Some of the key differences between GitOps and DevOps are:

DevOps focuses on automation and GitOps on version control.

DevOps engineers use Jenkins as the primary tool for continuous integration and delivery. Sometimes they use it with Ansible and Chef. GitOps engineers use Git. Sometimes they also use Kubernetes for making changes. GitOps offers the following advantages:

• Code branching and merging becomes easier.
• A large variety of third-party integrations is possible.
• It helps with version control.

Deployment correctness is manual in DevOps and automated in Git

In DevOps, while the operations team manages the infrastructure and deploys the code, the development team ensures correctness of the deployments. In GitOps, declarative configuration files stored in Git repositories automate the verification and check for correctness before deployment. This also improves the accuracy of the application. As a result, the risk of errors is less and in case of errors, rollback is possible. Of course, Git repository management requires technical expertise and organization.

Git comes with version control and eliminates manual intervention.

Git enables version control, which simplifies automation as it allows the code and configuration to be pushed directly from the system to the production environment. This accelerates deployment while eliminating the risk of errors due to manual intervention.

Managing Infrastructure Code: DevOps vs GitOps

DevOps follows declarative and prescriptive approaches to operations. Therefore, it can be used for models of monolithic applications or those with limited componentization. DevOps monitors, configures, and manages infrastructure as a code for solving problems around infrastructure changes, such as during modernization.

GitOps, on the other hand, uses a declarative approach and is becoming popular for managing modern cloud infrastructure. When developing containerized applications, it optimizes CI/CD on Kubernetes and accelerates deployment. For DevOps teams familiar with Kubernetes, using GitOps pipelines is easy and needs minimal changes to the existing workflows for automated software delivery.

6 More Reasons Why GitOps is Great

While it improves the delivery cycle and software efficiency, Git is not without its challenges. Git requires highly technical skills to manage and maintain the software. If the changes are not merged or managed properly, it can result in data loss. It also requires the development and operations teams to collaborate more closely, which can be challenging in a large organization.

Having said that, there are many benefits of incorporating the GitOps approach to software development.

• Businesses can become more agile and responsive to customer needs as it accelerates production time, feature management, and updating of Kubernetes.
• With Git Repo, tasks such as pull requests for the Continuous Deployment and Continuous Integration (CI/CD) pipelines can be made reproducible.
• It improves efficiency of workflows through end-to-end standardization and automation.
• GitOps improves stability and reliability by providing audit logs that help validate changes.
• Its robust cryptography ensures the security of the environment, reduces downtime, and improves response times to incidents.

GitOps Use Cases

GitOps can be used in a variety of scenarios, such as,

• Slicing Networks: GitOps can be used to lower costs by allowing service providers to slice service tiers and letting users pay according to bandwidth usage.

• Documentation and Writing: VCS such as GitHub or bitbucket can be used to store ASCII docs. They can be used for product documentation or other writing projects. It even enables checking grammar and spelling and the document can be converted to any format such as doc, PDF, or ePUB.

• Editing for Static Websites: GitOps simplifies the editing of complex markdown files in static websites.

Indium for GitOps Approach

Indium is a data engineering, software development, and quality assurance company with vast experience in DevOps and automation. Our team of experienced developers works closely with our customers to create bespoke solutions that accelerate development and break barriers to innovation. Our developers have the necessary qualifications and expertise in GitOps, DevOps, Kubernetes, Jenkins, and other tools needed to create the right architecture and solutions for our customers based on their goals and needs.

The post Intelligent and Automated Software Delivery with GitOps appeared first on Indium.

Some of the key technologies that are transforming digital technologies are:

Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning

Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning is at the heart of digital transformation and quite pervasive, powering many solutions, improving personalization, and enhancing user experiences. AI/ML systems run on natural language processing algorithms that convert unstructured data to structured data. This brings in an element of uncertainty and ensuring that they function as expected can be a big challenge as the algorithms are trained to learn based on user activity and evolve to enhance user experience, supporting human intelligence to improve outcomes.

Internet of Things

The Internet of Things devices are also becoming ubiquitous, empowering humans with smart devices that improve their efficiency and effectiveness. IoT devices contain embedded systems, controlled by an application, and connected to a network that allows data to be gathered and uploaded to the cloud. This data is further used for analytics and developing ML models.

NFT

Non-fungible tokens or NFTs have become popular for the easy money, or cryptocurrency, that people are making by selling art on the net. But that’s not the only use for NFTs. It is, in fact, a highly secure solution for digital assets and is also used for creating smart contracts based on blockchain technology. It leaves an audit trail of transactions, preventing fraud and improving traceability.

These and many such technologies have disrupted the way businesses run and enhance user experience. However, the extent of digital transformation through automation and resource reallocation is limited by the ability of different components to interact smoothly with each other. The digital ecosystem is continually evolving, and people and processes are becoming more interconnected through multiple channels like mobile, social, analytics, and cloud stack. This is creating a complex environment. And any lapse or lag in this environment will cause interruptions and disruptions. Performance can become an issue if the underlying engine or the data is not performing as expected or of the right quality. Managing these complexities associated with digital transformation is where digital assurance and quality testing come in.

Also read: The Role of IoT in Metaverse

Factors Driving the Need for Digital Assurance of Future Tech Applications

Complex Digital Ecosystem

The various components of digital transformation, including mobile, social, analytics, and cloud, need to be synchronized to deliver the desired objectives. This is very complex due to the varying levels of maturity of the solutions and the organizations embracing these technologies.

Greater Security Threats

As systems become more intelligent, so do the hackers and malicious elements. IoT devices also leave enterprise systems vulnerable due to the interconnection of applications across devices, especially at the edge. This has increased the need for tighter security solutions that are properly configured, constantly tested, and revised to meet evolving challenges.

Hybrid Environments

Often, businesses with legacy systems continue to retain on-premises systems for a part of their operations. This requires digital solutions to be able to access legacy IT infrastructure without impacting core functionalities.

Enhancing Customer Experience

There is no predictability as to how a customer will access the services. Therefore, ensuring a uniform experience across the four pillars of the digital ecosystem becomes essential. Each component must deliver optimum performance throughout the business journey and enhance customer delight.

Agility and Shorter Time-to-Market

Shorter delivery cycles have become very critical to ensure agility in a highly dynamic digital environment. It requires not only faster development cycles but also quality assurance to keep pace.

A digital-first approach in the modern business world requires business models and customer strategies to match the fast-paced transition at every stage of the journey. Traditional testing and automation are not equipped to meet these challenges and ensure the required quality assurance, security, performance, and functionality needs are met. The traditional QA processes and infrastructure also need to match the new need and be powered by modern technologies. They require an AI-based testing framework to enable machine learning and continuous improvement of testing for new technologies such as AI and IoT.

Automated Quality Assurance with Modern Technologies

Test automation and quality assurance help meet several of the development goals. They accelerate testing, improve outcomes, and shorten the time to market.

Some of the key emerging technologies in digital quality assurance and testing are:

Shift-Left Approach to Testing

In the (traditional) waterfall approach, apps would be tested after the development is complete and before the production stage. But today, organizations use a Shift Left approach where the testing team gets involved right at the beginning of the software development process to identify and prevent defects early.

Codeless Test Automation

Codeless test automation involves no code. It enables the democratization of testing by empowering citizen testers to build test use cases with object, data, model, and keyword methods. User-friendly interfaces allow even the uninitiated to easily understand the scripted testing tools and use them effectively to debug at every stage of the development process.

Machine Learning/AI

Artificial intelligence and machine learning enable the prediction of the test script and write test cases appropriate to the requirements. These technologies help create multiple frameworks such as linear scripting, data-driven hybrid testing, modular testing and such. In keyword-driven codeless frameworks, a table format is used to define keywords or action words that execute the function. Behavior-driven framework allows tests to be written in plain, descriptive English. With NLP-driven frameworks, Natural Language can be used to write the test steps.

NLP and keyword-driven frameworks have gained popularity as they are easy to use, and allow test cases to be written seamlessly in a simple, natural language that can be easily interpreted and understood. They also help draw insights from unstructured data for improved decision-making.

Data Quality Assurance

Since data is at the core of all modern technologies, the quality of the data also becomes crucial. The data should be complete, deduplicated, have integrity, and be relevant. This requires data to be screened and cleansed of anomalies for achieving expected outcomes.

Indium for Digital Assurance

Indium Software has all-round experience in development, quality assurance, testing, and DevOps. This lethal combination enables it to leverage the latest technologies to create frameworks that can be easily customized to meet the varying digital assurance requirements of different enterprises. Indium has more than 22 years of QA experience and provides end-to-end assurance services that shorten delivery cycles and improve customer experience.

Its quality assurance stack includes:

Quality Assurance

Covers functional QA, performance assurance, test data management, smart test automation, and business value chain testing.

Quality Engineering

Covers CX testing, testing of API/microservices to QAOps, low-code platform testing, data assurance, and Smart Assisted Testing

Future Tech Digital Assurance

Covers QAOps and digital assurance for IoT-enabled apps, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT), and Blockchain, and testing of AI engines and models

Test Advisory & Consulting

Helps clients with QA Maturity Assessment and develop the overall test and test automation strategy for DevOps and Agile environments.

FAQs

The post AI and IP-led Digital Assurance with a Test Automation Platform for Testing AI, IoT, and other Future-Tech Applications appeared first on Indium.

A renowned global manufacturer of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems for commercial and residential applications wanted to transition their legacy .NET sales and service applications to the Mendix low-code platform. Indium Software, a cutting-edge software development firm with Mendix expertise and experience, used the Mendix low-code development platform to migrate its legacy application to Mendix. The migration improved data processing time by 50%, and helped personnel across countries maintain sales and service records for assets such as equipment, parts, and buildings.

Indium additionally established a streamlined QA process for the management, execution, and reporting of the low-code platform. It performed the testing in parallel, using a shift-left approach and aligning with the requirements and architectural flow. In addition to testing on various environments, it also ensured that the features met customer requirements.

Indium’s Low-Code Test Automation Platform

Indium Software, along with software development, has more than two-decade experience in testing and quality assurance. One of its USPs is its ability to keep pace with the times and adopt best practices to deliver cutting-edge solutions to its customers. In testing and QA too, Indium has established its reputation by developing iSafe, a testing framework, to automate the process and improve time-to-market.

Today, as agile development with DevOps has become the default software development methodology, Indium has responded by embracing the Shift Left approach to testing. As a result, it has worked closely with developers to integrate testing with the development process and accelerate product development.

The world is moving towards low-code to speed up development and time-to-market further, and Indium has responded by building uphoriX, a unique low-code test automation platform. uphoriX has been built on Selenium, which reduces the script development time by 60%. It has an intelligent script maintenance feature that enables auto-healing to make script maintenance 40% more efficient. The script-once NFT – ‘One script-Script Once’ approach combines performance and vulnerability assessment. For every new device released, it offers an integrated and automated compatibility assessment solution. It also handles large volumes of data in any format using native test data generation.

Benefits of a Low-Code Testing Platform

Low-code development has enabled businesses to develop smart applications in a timely and cost-effective manner. It has also helped businesses create prototypes at the idea generation stage, for experimenting and validating them and assessing the probable consequences. This has increased low-code adoption, with the market expected to grow from USD 16.3 billion in 2021 to USD 148.5 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 27.8%.

Along with speed, some of the benefits of low code platforms such as Mendix are agility and re-usability, and acceleration of digital transformation initiatives. uphoriX leverages these capabilities to automate testing and meets testing needs for performance, security, and compatibility.

Shift-Left Approach

In the traditional testing approach, the application is tested after the development is completed and just before the product is deployed to the production server. This causes delays and gaps between requirements and the actual product.

Low-code platforms such as Mendix offer many boilerplates and workflows. Every configuration also offers a different user behavior. It improves the outcome of root cause analysis and ensures confident release.

Indium’s shift-left test approach covers the design aspects of Mendix-based entities and microflows, and leverages Unit Test modules, AQM, APM, etc. It helps identify design issues much earlier in the development cycle and minimizes rework and delays. Test automation using Mendix ATS also helps increase the test completion rate and improve test accuracy.

Indium has a team of more than 150 experienced low-code developers with cross-domain, cross-functional experience. The shift-left approach speeds up product release, reduces costs, and enhances innovation. The Mendix platform offers features such as an intuitive interface, automation of processes, and AI-based recommendations.

This helps with

• Early detection of defects
• Lower cost of testing
• Lower leakage of production defects

uphoriX Value Proposition

uphoriX codifies years of Indium’s experience in software testing and test automation. The platform can be customized and it enables:

• Parallel testing with easy-to-use features
• DevOps support for multiple vendors
• Reliability, scalability, and security
• 30% improved testing cycle
• 50% reduced defect retesting
• Flexi-grab feature
• 60-70% decrease in test preparation effort
• User-friendliness with standardized test artifacts
• Agile development owing to Its adaptive testing and auto-healing capabilities
• Extensive QA coverage across devices and browser combinations
• Provision of a highly customizable automation platform at no additional costs

About Indium Software

Indium has five years of rich experience in developing on the Mendix low-code platform to enable businesses to quickly ‘innovate, experiment, and deliver’ enterprise-grade apps.

Indium’s Mendix capabilities include:

Mendix Architecture and Design Services

The Indium team of low-code experts helps organizations power their businesses with a robust architectural foundation

Rapid Custom Application Development

A team of handpicked experts helps with the development of web, UI/UX, and mobile (hybrid & native) development

Indium Integrations Foundry for Mendix

Indium offers a variety of custom-built and open-source APIs

Data Migration and Deployment Services

The Indium team works with Mendix V4to V8

Mendix QA

Indium offers end-to-end testing with the Mendix test suite and Shift-Left QA model

FAQ

The post <strong>Shift Left Testing: Indium’s Approach for Testing Apps Built Using a Low-Code Platform like Mendix</strong> appeared first on Indium.

The implementation of CI/CD has changed how software developers and software testers ship software. 

It was not long before when Agile came into the world of software development. Back then people were a little bit sceptical about the new player that has entered the new world of software and development.

Traditionally, the software testing team will receive a build after the project completion for testing process to begin.

But now, quite some time has passed and now Agile is one of the most important tools that can be used for the development of products and management of projects.

In its original course, Agile was basically a tool that was particularly useful in the operations space and IT departments as it helped in breaking down different large projects into smaller bits.

Due to this methodology, there were many benefits that came into the light. Shorter times of production, reduced amount of risks for different projects, and high-quality in the products are some of the benefits that came to existence all because of Agile.

To be honest, Agile was the foundation on which DevOps created a while world of itself.

Most people who are in the software world think that DevOps and Agile are not the same. They are not wrong but they are not right as well.

When it comes to the definition, DevOps can be defined as a particular process of development that wants to combine the development, testing, and deployment of any product under the same roof.

Such a streamlined approach allows a faster and easier delivery of the services and products.

To think that DevOps and Agile have no relation at all would be a mistake. While these two terms are not similar, they are basically a continuation of one another.

Continuous Development – Continuous Integration – Continuous Delivery

We all know that Agile methods and practices are all focused mainly on making the team work in a more efficient and smarter way.

So, this process slowly led to the development of a particular framework that worked for continuous development.

After that, companies and organizations began to automate and streamline several significant parts of different projects and production processes.

Continuous Integration (CI) is the process where the work of individual developers are saved in to a common repository.

The purpose of CI is to identify bugs at the earlier stage. Continuous Delivery (CD) is basically the extension of CI.

The aim of CD is to ensure the new changes made are updated in an efficient and sustainable way.

This paved way for Continuous testing. In fact, continuous testing is the most important factor for DevOps initiatives to produce expected outcomes.

Continuous testing is often performed as a set of automated tests that are executed in the CI/CD pipeline.

Effects of DevOps and Agile on Automation

DevOps and Agile are basically a continuation of each other and hence these two practices have fuelled the use of test automation.

It is a fact that the ability to simplify and streamline the complicated projects that Agile has is certainly beneficial.

Not to mention that it is helped the companies in increasing efficiency and reducing the chances of human error.

Apart from that, the practicality, efficiency, and integration that is increased all due to the efforts of DevOps have technically allowed test automation to play a very important role in the different business projects.

Have a look at how influenced test automation services is due to the introduction of Agile and DevOps.

Shortening The Production Times

One of the most important elements that function in test automation is the ability to decrease production times.

Also, it allows certain functions to be carried out in an effective manner without any downtime.

Agile basically helps in breaking down the different functions of the software that are automated and turns these complex functions into components that can be easily programmed.

Along with that, DevOps service provides the operational work team with an ability to monitor all the automated process.

As a result of that, they are able to easily identify how effective these processes are for the production. So, the end of the story is that the production times are reduced and the quality of the product is increased.

Increasing The Satisfaction Of The Customers

It might be surprising but DevOps and Agile are influencing automation to improve the satisfaction of the customers as well.

It is really important for any business to evolve according to the needs and requirements of the customer and experience success.

Directly along with this particular objective, automation helps the adoption process by making it a lot easier for the different businesses and companies to offer customized, standardized and most important, attractively priced services and products to the customers.

Large Scale Production Of Products

It is true that DevOps and Agile work to scale the development and the delivery of the services and products.

Surely you know that test automation is a part of scalability. With the help of test automation a more relevant, measurable, and comprehensive process of development, products and services can be created on a much larger scale.

So, ultimately it will improve the productivity of the business by meeting the expectations of the customers and increasing the demand.

So, these are some of the effects that Agile and DevOps have had on the automation. It is clear to see that these to developmental tools have created a whole new world of opportunities for business to leverage many benefits.

The post How DevOps and Agile are Influencing Automation appeared first on Indium.