Veeresh Erched

Topic: Thunderous testing in the cloud transformation journey

Abstract: Testing in the world of cloud transformation
Testing has always been a combination of art and science.
Firstly, in the eyes of a skilful artist (a.k.a tester), he/she represents the customer, represents the company reputation, represents the product which has gone through multiple changes, but is fit for consumption. Consumption could be in the form of an end user, or another business in a B2B scenario. These place the role of a tester at a very high level in the value chain of software development.

In the second part of the tester in the role of a scientist, he/she is expected to be skilful in improving the process, improving the capability of the team and in turn improving the quality of the product, team and the organization overall. This again places the role in such high importance that the person doing the role has to be on top of the game on a day to day basis.

Having said this, the role has seen huge transformations in the recent past. Transformation to Agile have changed the role from being at the end of the cycle, to the absolute beginning of the SDLC with the advent of Test-driven development.
Transformation to SaFe has elevated it further. Transformation of DevOps and Full stack development have challenged the standalone role itself. But nothing more disruptive has happened more than the transformation to the cloud. This talk speaks more about how the role has evolved or is evolving and what is expected from this role in the future.
The move to the cloud comes with various challenges. The expectation to test in the legacy world, be equally skilful in the cloud/futuristic world, and not to mention the state in-between – the hybrid limbo!
Transformation is usually not a one-day journey, which means during the phase of the transformation a tester needs to do both the legacy world work, improve it to keep it stable and also design for the future on the cloud. Where should the tester focus? The new? The Old?

This talk focuses on key aspects of testing in the transformation cloud journey. Focus on improvements, test coverage and enhancements in the legacy world. Focus on transformational Test-driven focus in the cloud era and everything that comes in-between.

While this transition itself is complex, there are aspects of testing which vary in the IAAS, PAAS and SAAS worlds. With cloud first approach being taken with many new age product organizations, the dev and testing itself is almost outsourced to the cloud provider. The testing of the product built on cloud could mean much less intensive than in the past. Performance testing could be completely taken out of the game with the cloud acting like any parent protecting the product from failing with umpteen resources/hardware thrown at it by the cloud provider (at a cost of-course!). Expensive product is better than a failing product, so not investing in testing but investing on hardware be a solution for things in the cloud? A lot of these questions are not yet answered fully, but like everyone knows, a bug caught early is the most efficient scenario. How are we working this out during the cloud transformation?

In summary, this talk focuses on the journey of a tester in the cloud world. The choices he/she has and the new challenges that the role must endure.

Customer delight they say focuses on a bug free product. An ace tester has a future like never before!