Cloud Native Testing Trends for 2023
As cloud native software development continues to gain traction, the importance of testing following a DevOps workflow has become more pronounced. At KubeCon + CloudNativeCon in Detroit, I had the opportunity to engage with hundreds of DevOps engineers and learn about their latest approaches to testing.
With Kubecon 2023 Europe coming up next month, I wanted to share a few trends in testing in the cloud native landscape that I observed from talking with DevOps engineers.
In 2023, we are going to see organizations adopting new cloud native technologies as they also upgrade their infrastructure, especially companies that are transitioning to Kubernetes and GitOps. One testing trend that stood out and is expected to dominate the cloud native testing landscape in 2023 is the move toward more integration testing and faster automation.
Challenges of Testing in a Cloud Native Environment
Testing in a cloud native environment can be challenging, as it involves testing across multiple platforms and services, using a diverse set of tools that can vary greatly across teams and workflows. The distributed nature of cloud native applications means that testing must be performed on a larger scale, with more components to be tested.
DevOps teams must also consider the impact of the underlying infrastructure on testing, as changes to the infrastructure can affect the behavior of the application. To overcome these challenges, organizations are adopting a cloud native testing strategy that incorporates automation and integrates testing into the development process.
Companies Are Doing More Integration Testing and Automating Testing Workflows
The rise of Kubernetes and cloud native software has dramatically increased the number of components that need to be tested. With microservices architecture becoming more prevalent, testing individual units of code (unit testing) is no longer enough to ensure the application’s overall performance and reliability. Integration testing, which combines multiple units and evaluates the system’s performance against specifications, is becoming increasingly necessary.
In more mature organizations with greater resources, integration testing is already the norm, but manual integration testing can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. This year, based on the trend we have seen in the last year, I predict a continued shift toward full automation in integration testing practices, elevating companies from doing just unit testing to being more agile and doing integration testing as well.
DevOps Will Be More Involved in Testing and Test Automation
As organizations move toward cloud native testing, the role of DevOps engineers in testing becomes increasingly important. DevOps is not just about automating software development, but also about automating testing and deployment processes.
DevOps engineers are increasingly taking ownership of testing, and tools like Testkube can help them easily integrate testing into their workflows. By taking a collaborative approach to testing, DevOps engineers can ensure that testing is done throughout the development life cycle, reducing the risk of bugs slipping through to production.
Companies Will Implement More Continuous Testing Strategies
Continuous testing is an approach to testing that involves testing both early and throughout the development life cycle. By adopting a continuous testing strategy, organizations are ensuring that testing is done throughout the development process, reducing the risk of bugs slipping through to production.
Continuous testing is also allowing organizations to detect and fix bugs earlier in the development process, reducing the time and cost of bug fixes. By embracing a continuous testing strategy, organizations can increase the speed and quality of their software development processes, leading to faster time to market and a better user experience.
Embracing Modern, Cloud Native Testing
To lead the way in testing innovation, at Kubeshop we developed Testkube with the goal of making all types of testing cloud native and easier for DevOps teams. These different types of tests include:
- Load testing: using tools like K6, Jmeter or Artillery
- APIs testing: using Postman, SoapUI, Gingko, etc.
- Frontend/end-to-end testing: Cypress, Playwright
- General: Java, Golang, Python, Javascript-based tests.
As long as it can run inside a Docker image, any test can be made cloud native using Testkube.
Because it integrates test orchestration and execution directly into Kubernetes and decouples the testing workflow out of your CI/CD pipelines, challenges related to network access, automation, configurations and pipeline setup become less of an issue.
Testkube simplifies the testing process and enables DevOps teams to quickly and easily run integration and automation tests within their K8s clusters, which works well with both traditional CI/CD pipelines and more modern GitOps workflows. With Testkube, you don’t have to rewrite or adjust your existing tests to get started, simply integrate them into your current testing process for a seamless upgrade to integration testing.
Conclusion
DevOps and testing are inseparable in modern software development. As cloud native technologies continue to evolve, DevOps teams must embrace new testing practices to ensure the performance and reliability of their applications.
By adopting a modern, cloud native testing approach and using tools like Testkube, DevOps teams can streamline their workflows and gain a competitive advantage in today’s fast-paced software development landscape.
Join our Discord community or create feature requests on our GitHub Issues page to learn more about Testkube and how it can help your team achieve cloud native testing.
