Continuous Testing

For startups as well as large global corporations, legacy systems of record with semiannual to quarterly release cycles must keep pace with new and flexible systems of engagement that are updated at intervals of typical agile cycles or even more frequently.

SAP's omnipresence in the area of systems of record means that solutions must also be developed for the products from Walldorf that enable continuous integration and continuous delivery of system adaptations.

The application of DevOps principles is essential here, i.e. the integration of development and operations through intensive change management in the organization and mindset on the one hand and the creation of the technical prerequisites for acceleration and quality assurance through automation on the other.

The high risk of frequent changes to systems of record is justifiably often invoked as a valid counter-argument. Continuous Delivery must therefore always be accompanied by Continuous Testing. However, this also means that all tests must then also be performed at the new, significantly higher frequencies.

Traditional testing no longer gets you very far. Where are all the business analysts supposed to come from and who is supposed to pay for these efforts?

How can we ensure that high-frequency releases provide the customer with an exceptional customer journey without hindering the release process? Three aspects play an important role here.

Risk-Based Testing:

This is based on the changes made; test case suites are to be tailored so that change-appropriate subsuites can be assembled for regression testing.

Automated Testing:

Manual testing is no longer feasible due to the volume of business processes that would need to be tested with each update.

Infrastructure:

This must allow testing to be incremental and continuous; strategies such as service virtualization and test data management are needed to consistently execute the appropriate tests and validate each change.

As with build, deployment and transport processes, there is no way around automation when it comes to testing.

In the SAP environment, it is important to support different generations of commonly used SAP technologies and user interfaces, such as SAP Fiori (SAPUI5), SAP Fiori on Mobile (Android & iOS), SAP WinGUI, SAP WebDynpro, CRM WebClient, SAP Business Client, SAP API, SAP RFC and SAP iDOCs.

Also helpful for efficient test automation are industry-specific suites of standard test cases and the ability to easily update test cases as business processes change.

As employees of MSG, an IT consulting and systems integration company with a focus on SAP, we appreciate such features. We therefore rely on the Tosca product from the Austrian software house Tricentis.

As MSG test specialists, we have been supporting customers for years in the implementation or integration of Tosca and also advise on all topics related to software testing and lifecycle management, with a particular focus on test automation and DevOps.

A strategic partnership between MSG and Tricentis was therefore a logical step. Another argument in favor of Tricentis is that the SAP Solution Manager version 7.2., which is frequently used for testing purposes in the SAP environment, is highly integrated with Tosca, so that the creation and execution of test cases, the exchange of test data and consolidated reporting can be easily supported by the two systems.

With this partnership, we have created a solid foundation to offer our customers professional testing services up to the complete takeover of testing as a Continuous Testing Service.