Significance of Functional Testing for Businesses in Agile & DevOps

Today’s businesses are rapidly embracing agile and DevOps to accomplish faster and quality releases. DevOps methodology embeds faster releases accomplished through continuous integration and continuous delivery of software along with continuous testing. Many software testing methods such as regression, performance, functional, security testing, etc., are leveraged to assure high-quality products.

Out of these techniques, the functional testing method plays a significant role in the software release in the agile and DevOps methods. It helps businesses accomplish fully functional and high-quality software in less time through faster and quality releases.

What is functional testing?

Functional testing is a black box kind of software testing, and quality assurance method is conducted to test the software’s functionality and its related elements. The main purpose of this testing kind is to validate the functionalities of an application against business requirements by delivering certain inputs and validating the outputs.

Types of functional testing methods

1. Unit testing: It is the first phase of the software testing process, where developers test the smallest feasible units of the software in isolation to validate its functionality.

2. Component testing: In this software testing kind, software components are tested separately without integrating them with other elements.

3. Smoke testing: This state of testing is also named build verification testing, which is used to define the stability of the software. It helps testers understand whether the code can be shared for further testing.

4. Sanity testing: In this software testing method, testers execute basic tests on the software. Whenever the build is obtained after some changes, this testing kind is conducted to ensure the bugs are resolved and the software functions correctly.

5. Integration testing: In this software testing kind, various individual software modules are combined and tested as a group to provide their proper functioning.

6. Regression testing: In this software testing procedure, the software is tested to ensure that recent code modifications or newly added functionalities do not influence the existing functionalities of the software.

7. System testing: In this testing kind, the quality assurance team considers the software to know how different components interact together. It assures that the software works correctly.

8. User acceptance testing: In this testing technique, the end-user/client/product owner tests the product to confirm its functionality and usability before it is released in the market.

Why do businesses need functional testing?

• Helps to validate the functionality and correct working of application/software/product

• It helps to enhance the quality of the software

• Helps to prove the software functionality based on Software Requirements Specification (SRS) and assures the system functions as per the user specifications

• Helps to test specific error situations and other important functions of the software

• Helps to accomplish fully-functional software which is defect-free to provide a great CX

Significance of Functional Testing for Businesses in Agile 

In traditional testing models like the waterfall model, the development and testing of the software occur one after the other, and usually, testing begins once the development is concluded. However, in agile methodology, the product is simultaneously produced and tested in sprints, and features are moved out in each cycle.

In an agile environment, at one end, the developers create the software, adds new features, or create improvements to the code, while simultaneously, on the other hand, testers conduct functional testing of the software. If some changes are submitted to the software, regression testing is conducted to assure the software’s existing functionality remains unchanged.

Common functional testing kinds conducted in an agile environment incorporate smoke, sanity, unit, component, etc. Functional testing in agile paces up the software testing process, assures early identification and removal of defects, improves collaboration between teams, and saves time.

Significance of functional testing in DevOps

In a DevOps environment, the main focus is building, testing, and releasing the software faster and more frequently. DevOps simplifies and automates the complete software delivery lifecycle by combining it with the Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) pipeline. In DevOps, everything beginning from development to the software release is continuous and automated. The software is constantly generated, constantly tested, constantly integrated, constantly deployed, and constantly monitored.

Automated functional testing is conducted at each stage of the DevOps CI/CD pipeline to software quality. During the development stage, unit testing is conducted to assure code quality. Also, in the DevOps environment, developers often commit modifications to source code and combine those code changes to a central repository. Regression testing is conducted to assure code changes do not violate the software’s existing functionality. At the continuous integration stage, integration testing is conducted to assure the proper integration of all codes and modules. Finally, the entire software is tested by leveraging system testing techniques to assure the proper functioning of the software. This is how functional testing fits in the DevOps environment and enables businesses to accomplish high-quality software.

Some of the advantages of functional testing in DevOps include it helps to remove functional defects from the software much early and faster, assures the software quality beginning from build stage to release stage, provides fully-functional software in less time, destroys the possibilities of manual errors, as the method is automated, and saves significant time and cost.

Also Read: Discover The Hidden Bugs With Non-Functional Testing

Conclusion

Today’s businesses are rapidly adopting agile and DevOps processes to accomplish quality software in less time. But the quality of the software depends on its correct functioning, which can be provided through end-to-end functional testing. This testing kind helps businesses in many methods, such as enhancing the functionality of the software, enhancing customer experience, and saving significant costs. Businesses should leverage end-to-end functional testing from a next-gen QA and independent software testing services provider to achieve high-quality software in less time.

At TestUnity, we strive for the highest quality in every project, and our professional QA specialists are ready to ensure it. Contact us if you’re looking for a dedicated team to enhance your product’s quality.

TestUnity

Testunity is a SaaS-based technology platform driven by a vast community of testers & QAs spread around the world, powered by technology & testing experts to create the dedicated testing hub. Which is capable of providing almost all kind of testing services for almost all the platforms exists in software word.