Shorter development cycles and faster innovation are the basic characteristics of the DevOps model. It has swept the market with new ideas and incredible solutions, leading to 74% adoption by global enterprises. The reasons are different, but the top ones are the ability to recover from a failure in less than 60 minutes, minimization of support cases by 37%, and overall need to “put out fires”. No wonder that Quality Assurance, as a stage of the software development process, had to adapt to the new reality of the DevOps model and change its traditional approaches.

So what is traditional QA and how DevOps amended its practices? Let’s break down the key definitions and changes in the industry.

What is QA?

Quality Assurance is a multilayer process that helps to determine whether a product or a service meets the requirements. This process helps with creating products (software) that meet the industry standards as well as the needs and requirements of end-users. While its main focus is on the quality of the final product, QA practices also help to improve the process of development.

What is Traditional QA?

Traditional QA is a part of the software development life cycle (SDLC). The oldest method of its implementation is a waterfall model where quality assurance practices kick in after the development of the whole product is completed. Yet, remember that the oldest doesn’t mean the best. It is still used in some projects, but it is not that convenient in the era of rapid changes and frequent amendments. This is why today’s QA is a bit different than just a waterfall.

#qa #qa-best-practices #devops #devops-model #devops-top-story #quality-assurance #agile #agile-teams