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The past half-decade, and most of 2016 markedly saw a surge in new technological trends in various walks of the software industry. While IoT and machine learning driving a shift towards artificial intelligence, the year left a gaping requirement in many fields of software development to catch-up. Software Testing, a phase which has always been a part of the SDLC did see a lot of transformations and new tool set being implemented. 2017 has already seen some old habits fade away and new ones being adopted that are perfect from the technology perspective.

Swifter Releases

Agile Software development isn’t a new concept. It has been around for a long time but over the past year, the concept has undergone a lot of development. Organizations are increasingly favoring adoption of Open source software especially in case of Agile because it allows collaboration among the teams. The result is faster development cycle and reduction in the costs. Developers prefer to use the code that is readily available as solution and thereby increase the efficiency.

The IOT Challenge

IoT is a complex network of connected devices embedded with electronics, sensor and software to enable collection and analysis of data being exchanged.  This unique architecture of systems call for various kinds of tests to ensure that the IoT applications function perform as per expectations and are secure.   The development of interfaces and connection and communication algorithms, were in full swing during the most of 2016, there wasn’t much interest shown into the area of testing. If IoT as a concept has to manifest itself into the real world, a proper end to end testing of the various communication and interfacing components needs to be developed.

Digital Transformation through Agile and DevOps

If one is to zero in on a trend which has markedly made its mark within the enterprise-wide technology space, it must be DevOps and the Agile methodologies which come bundled with it. A research commenced in 2016 asserted that as many as 54 percent of all the big enterprises across the world, were running digital transformation projects and revolution arising procedures entailing one agile technology or the other. As corporate move towards faster deliveries and pushing releases through the agile pipeline, it is needless to stress upon how important the testing wrapper around it will be. The real challenge in this is not just around having the testing procedures developed, but in deciding as to which ones are the most effective ones to have, that can be turned around in the least of time frames. This will be crucial in terms of minimizing technology spends for companies, while maintaining a competitive advantage over their peers.

Download Whitepaper: The Role of Testing in DevOps and Agile

Security Stand point of Software Testing

Do you remember what the buzz words were for the past year, in terms of the technological innovation space? There undoubtedly were ‘IoT’, ’Mobile’ and ‘Cloud’. Look at each o these and try and answer as to what is one common theme which comes out as a concern for all of these? Security! With the enterprise systems and resources moving largely out of premise on cloud networks, and being increasingly access by mobile users, there are grave threats to the working of such technologies from a security standpoint. Trust the world Security Report to realize the true potential of this threat, which clearly states more than 86 percent breaches occurred at the application level in enterprises. Needless to say, the focus in 2017 has to move from just developing applications on Cloud or in the mobile or IoT space, to having they being water tight in terms of security.

Download this Free checklist: Importance of Security Testing in IoT

Enhanced automation Testing

As technological innovation came on to transform all the fields of working as we know, automation has come on to manifest itself within the testing arena as well. Automation needs to become an integral part of modern application delivery methodologies like continuous delivery. This is the reason why a whole lot of tools such as Selenium were adopted to bring in automation of test cases in the various testing paradigms followed in enterprises. Most software testing professionals focused on implementing the testing automation for the basic functionality within the application, and this was the direction of the flow in 2016. For an automated software delivery, it makes sense  to have a code that can automatically run through a build process to include automated tests. As testing automation is manifested and companies start to realize the benefits in terms of cost savings, customers  become all the more demanding. This is why a smarter approach to software testing automation needs to be developed in 2017, stressing customer experience within the entire software testing framework. The automated processes will enable organizations to overcome the seemingly impossible range of variables they have to cater to.

Any new initiative needs to be properly funded, if it is to have its desired effect in the long term. Software Testing and quality assurance is no different and the corporate have surely realized this. Therefore the progression from 2014 to 2016 saw a surge of about 38 percent in the spends on testing budgets. Although 2016 was all about swelling quality assurance budgets and spends, there is a dire need to make sure that this investment bears maximum fruit. This is the reason why optimizing these spends, and putting the money on only the most optimized testing approaches should be the driver in 2017.

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