Challenge
A release pipeline is the end-to-end process, including manual and automated steps, of how a user accesses a software program or application. A proper release pipeline is a smooth process that enables users to efficiently access and use a secure version of the software. A specialty insurance company had little confidence in its release pipelines, but attempts to update and fix the concerns often caused more problems. Their IT team pushed code changes apprehensively, and they spent more time putting out fires each day in production. The insurance company needed to feel confident in the quality of their software development lifecycle so that it could deliver functioning software with a positive business impact. They reached out to New Era Technology for solutions.
Solution
After looking at their existing challenges, our team recommended developing an automated testing system. This would test the release pipeline in a variety of manners so the development team could find areas of concern and fix them where needed rather than rely on guesswork to push out code updates.
Our software testing experts worked with our client's development teams to build two reusable frameworks to automate testing and verify their applications. We built the first framework to handle their web-based applications, while the second framework addresses desktop clients.
While having a framework for automated testing is important, we wanted to set our client up for continued success. To do this, we worked with the development team to understand what constitutes repeatable, reliable testing methods and how to apply them to these frameworks.
In the end, our solution integrated highly-vetted open-source technologies to reduce costs without sacrificing quality, designed frameworks to be extended easily, allowing for fine-tuned customization, developed lean smoke test suites both to vet the new frameworks and to train developers, and empowered the company’s development team to expand test coverage to all of their applications using the same frameworks.
