Invention and improvement are the foundation of the technology industry. Technology, processes, and methodologies are continuously improving, with forward-thinking individuals and companies trying to find easier and better ways to enhance hardware and software.
This is how DevOps came to be and how DevTestOps is emerging as a strategy to improve software application delivery for all organizations, including SAP-using businesses.
Continuous testing is critical for any successful software development process. The goal of DevTestOps is to integrate continuous testing into DevOps.
In DevTestOps, you incorporate testing into the different stages of the software development lifecycle, from requirements through the build phase to production and monitoring. Essentially, you are testing as often as possible to increase the quality of SAP change and to save the time of individuals involved in the development process.
Testing is ‘shifted left’, enabling organizations to realize the benefits of incorporating testing earlier in the software development cycle (SDC). In shifting left, developers get constant feedback about the quality of their code. Importantly, you can find significant defects quicker, reducing the number of bugs at later stages.
More information here.
Other advantages of DevTestOps include:
- Quality is increased
- Collaboration is enhanced
- Faster time to production – quicker to deploy change or new app
Integration is Key
While the benefits of adopting DevTestOps are clear, challenges remain to more widespread deployment.
Most companies’ biggest challenge is relying on a traditional waterfall approach to software development. Adoption requires an organizational change –process, and a waterfall approach is at odds with SAP agile.
How can Rev-Trac help?
Rev-trac, an automated SAP change management platform, can provide the foundation for DevTestOps success. With Rev-Trac as the central piece of a unified solution, organizations can achieve their DevTestOps goals.
Rev-Trac oversees and enforces defined workflows and takes care of transport management. Its open architecture, based on REST APIs, means it is straightforward to integrate 3rd party tools like Jira and Tosca Tricentis, for example. Rev-Trac is easy to configure, so organizations can quickly change existing processes.
The solution can be installed, configured and in productive use within a few days. After the initial implementation, SAP IT teams can hone the application delivery process, adding additional steps or features at a pace the organization is comfortable with.
That is, start with the as is process. The only difference is to use Rev-Trac to automate SAP change instead of traditional methods like Excel sheets and emails.
You can implement continuous testing at this stage by introducing workflow steps like ‘Unit Test done’. A developer must approve that Unit Tests were completed, making them aware of the necessity for testing earlier in the process. Or introduce ‘UAT done’ plus a rule to upload the test protocol at a later stage, which needs to be enforced. However, these steps require manual effort, and Rev-Trac cannot check if tests have been carried out.
Next integrate solutions to reach higher levels of automation, and benefit from Rev-Trac’s capabilities to achieve DevTestOps success.
Here’s a real-world example of how DevTestOps can be integrated into the DevOps process:
It starts with a ServiceNow incident or request, which triggers the creation of a Rev-Trac change when a change to the SAP environment is required. Here, Rev-Trac takes over and manages development tasks.
In this scenario, automated testing is built into the process with the Tosca tool conducting tests on the SIT and UAT environments. Tosca sends the results back to Rev-Trac, which automatically approves or rejects the next workflow step.
Of course, there are no borders or limits. For example, this can be extended in the CI/CD workflow using gCTS and Docker images for developers, which SAP is promoting.
For more information about DevTestOps or how Rev-Trac can help with your DevOps journey, feel free to reach out to one of our SAP change management experts.
