Role Of Accelerators And Frameworks In Test Automation

By Author: James Danel
Total Articles: 7
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The imperatives of business agility and competition demand quick development, testing, and delivery of software applications. This calls for reinventing the traditional software development process by moving to service-oriented architectures riding on dependent services. The resultant architectural complexities and the quest to achieve shorter delivery cycles have made continuous testing a critical requirement. Test automation has been accepted as an enabler for testing and implementing complex software suites like ERP or CRM. The reasons are pretty obvious – to achieve speed and quality. QA automation testing helps to identify and fix resident errors in the software application under testing, accelerates the testing process, and builds a framework for future testing roles. So, when the requirement is to deliver test results quickly, consistently, accurately, and at a lesser cost, then the use of a test automation accelerator becomes important.

Role of the accelerator in an automated testing strategy
With more emphasis being put on achieving a faster time-to-market and enhancing the quality of software applications, ...
... enterprises have their task cut out. They seek to increase test coverage, reduce regression run time, and enhance the test environment by using accelerators. These are frameworks to enable teams to conduct early automation and write test scripts during the software development process. Accelerators allow other stakeholders or business users to add value by getting engaged in test automation. Also, they facilitate the implementation of end-to-end automated software testing across technology platforms. The test automation framework kit may comprise pre-built automated scripts, reusable object libraries, tool-agnostic framework, and automation guidelines and best practices. It is capable of supporting web-based applications, packaged applications, custom applications, and mobile-based applications. The benefits of using accelerators by test automation services are:

# Facilitate frequent software releases: Adhering to the delivery timelines by speeding up the development process is critical to remain competitive. Not only the software application suite is to be rolled-out but third-party software and dependencies need to be integrated and released as well. In an Agile or DevOps driven SDLC, accelerators allow the monitoring and control of all quality metrics, enable quick identification and fixing of glitches, and reduce efforts for maintenance.

# Enable early automation: Accelerators can work alongside other development and testing processes and can be implemented from the onset of development. So, an early automation testing approach can help detect issues in the build quickly and thereby achieve a faster time-to-market. This goes a long way in reducing the cost of development and testing, and improves ROI for the business.

# No development from scratch: For pre-built accelerators, there is no need to develop a test automation suite from scratch. Accelerators can generate automated test scripts once the test cases and logical flow are determined. The use of accelerators can bring down the testing efforts by 30% and cut down on licensing costs by allowing offline automation as well.

# End-to-end automation framework: Accelerators offer scalable test automation frameworks to be used for all types of testing activities across technology platforms. They offer a robust test automation strategy to derive better ROI as the framework is well defined, scalable, and easy to use.

Features of accelerators used by automation testing services

The key features of accelerators that make them so utilitarian in implementing any test automation strategy are:

Allow high reusability of components and test scripts resulting in reduced maintenance cost and effort

The presence of pre-built function libraries helps to reduce the cost of building a test automation suite by creating automated scripts

Compatible for integration with leading commercial tools such as Selenium

Enable faster test automation upon confirmation of test requirements. Allow simultaneous conduct of test automation and preparation of manual test cases

Facilitate faster time to market for software application under testing and achieve competitive advantage for the business enterprise

Allow quicker release of applications without impinging on their quality

Ensure the robustness and flexibility of scripts even when the application is subjected to multiple changes

Business enterprises can achieve a faster break-even point in about as many as 10 test cycles

Conclusion
The use of test automation accelerators in building and implementing the end-to-end test automation architecture is well established. These can be further used to improve test design, data management, execution, validation, and delivery of dashboards and real-time analytics. And since they can integrate with major test management tools, they have become irreplaceable for the test automation services.