Continuous testing is the incorporation of feedback processes at different stages of the software development life cycle, with the primary purpose of improving management deployment and efficiency. Continuous testing of key factors for the success of CI/CD processes plays a key role in accelerating SDLC schedules by improving code quality, avoiding high costs, and speeding up DevOps processes.

Continuous testing is also one of the principles of developing practical DevOps. Continuous testing leads to greater efficiency and high-quality deployments; Can more quickly find distributed project errors and timely repair; Improve the user experience; Reduce the likelihood of business disruption and reduce costs associated with development. For example, cloud server providers often experience a single endpoint failure, bringing down an entire region and causing outages for hours, which can be extremely disruptive for organizations that rely on high service availability. Refined continuous testing can identify unforeseen errors in software systems and help avoid business disruptions.

Continuous testing includes left shift testing, right shift testing, smoke testing, unit testing, integration and messaging testing, performance testing, functional testing, regression testing, user acceptance testing, and more. As information technology systems and applications continue to evolve, more risks may arise. For example, information technology systems and applications will be integrated with more and more new technologies, such as cloud computing, Internet of Things, software-defined networking, AR, etc., information technology systems and applications will become increasingly decentralized and may be distributed across multiple regions, with seamlessly interconnected cores and edges, smart cars, autonomous vehicles, and smart utility applications.

These situations drive the need for continuous testing, with development no longer taking place in a single location or within the company, but with third-party collaboration (remote teams). The system can be integrated with application programming interface apis, each development team runs in a different IT environment, and the actual environment of each team is impossible to reproduce and cannot be continuously tested.

Hence continuous test virtualization. You can create a test environment that virtually replicates the entire system in a single interface, easily reconfiguring the virtualization environment to test different IT systems or systems that have changed to correct errors.

The test set requires a continuous testing framework that ensures consistency in the modules, connectors (or apis and containers), platforms, infrastructure, and scenarios that define their requirements in each application. Test sets can be continuous (for example, unit tests followed by regression tests) or concurrent (for example, a new iteration of a module is accompanied by a test and corresponding tests for its dependencies).

The continuous testing framework ensures test consistency and makes it suitable for automation by providing a uniform wrapper for the test set. Developers need to ensure that the testing methods of different modules are consistent in order to facilitate the coordination and evolution of modules. As modules evolve, the associated tests need to be updated accordingly. The framework provides a standardized way to simplify changes to scripts and functionality. Eliminating inconsistencies in testing is critical to improving the efficiency of automation, which can otherwise lead to false test results.