Impact of Service Virtualization on Agile and DevOps Practices

The data, behavior and performance of the dependent systems are simulated by the service virtualization platform. Then after, a virtual service of the dependent systems is created. Thus, virtual services are used. Testers, developers and testers work in parallel, leading to higher quality, lower costs and faster delivery of applications. In this article, you will learn the constructive impact of service virtualization on Agile and DevOps platforms.

What is service virtualization?

It is a testing method wherein an application’s dependencies are emulated. Computer-generated virtual services are used by DevOps teams through service virtualization platform, instead of the real ones, so that testing can be carried out often, early and at lower costs in various conditions. The missing key parts of the distributed system are also included.

It is a cost effective approach to use virtual services for the purpose of carrying out testing activities rather than using production environments. The chances of losing data is eliminated by endpoint simulation done by API testing.

The impact of service virtualization on Agile and DevOps platforms:

By the strategic use of service virtualization platform, virtual services can be used by Agile and DevOps teams, instead of using production services. This in turn enables comprehensive and frequent testing even when certain components are missing in the system’s architecture. The constraints associated with the dependent systems are overcome by the service virtualization platform and thus end-to-end tests are properly run in DevOps.

As per a research conducted by a leading firm, access to 52 dependent elements is required by testing, QA and development teams for carrying out testing and development activities. But, unrestricted access to only 23 of them is provided. Hence, an organization’s competitiveness is at stake by at least 29 constraint points.

A robust application can be built by service virtualization platform by developing virtual assets that can be used for testing an application’s functionality and performance almost on a production-like scenario. Complex applications are allowed to go through the integration testing platform at early stages, so that risks are removed that may hamper the time-to-market and delay production of an application.

Service virtualization is implemented by QA and development teams by leveraging agile approach to reduce testing costs, improve productivity and deploy quality software at a much faster pace. Parallel development practices are supported and collaboration is ensured between Development, operations and QA teams.

Service virtualization best practices:

1. The right system needs to be tested: Those test scenarios need to be built that provide validation of the system that is being tested. A proper replica of the dependent environment needs to be simulated. The client should finalize the workflow through the apt support of virtualization.

2. Each team should be held responsible to create their own virtual services: Every team has its specific requirements and when own versions of virtual assets are being created, then there would be no harm if some redundancy occurs. The team that has been able to create the real service should also be able to develop the virtual service, because they have the specific expertise.

3. The test cases need to be recognized: Behaviors need to be included in the virtual service after the team is able to understand how the interaction of cases takes place. The test plan should be able to include the necessary transactions in the virtualization. The transactions that need to be virtualized should be taken into consideration by the test plan.

4. Random responses should not be used: A duplicatable functional test is not produced by a random response. If the data needs to be varied, a certain request is received. A non-changing response set needs to be created for a group of comparable inputs. Instead, the traffic dissemination needs to be varied with random inputs.

Conclusion: Service virtualization can prove to be a productive and feasible platform for Agile and DevOps models provided the team in charge knows how to strategically leverage it. If the team is looking for a structured, in-detail and pragmatic solution to utilize service virtualization, then they can connect with a professional firm that specializes in providing niche services.