What is shift-right testing?
Shift-right testing is a method of continuously testing software while it is in a post-production environment. Also known as testing in production, this approach helps software developers uncover new, unexpected scenarios that might not have been detected within the development environment. The goal of shift-right testing is to ensure correct behavior, performance and availability of applications in production.
How does shift-right testing work?
In shift-right testing, software development teams employ controlled experiments toward the end of the software development lifecycle (SDLC) that examine functionality, performance, fault tolerance and user experience (UX).
Techniques involved with shift-right testing can include the following:
- Canary testing.
- A/B testing.
- Fault injection testing.
- Destructive testing.
- User acceptance testing.
Importance of shift-right testing
Shift-right testing is important in ensuring that an application works under all circumstances and environments, such as different cloud environments. Additionally, testing while in production is crucial for guaranteeing software quality because it creates a continuous feedback loop between users and developers. Shift-right testing enables developers to analyze use cases that cannot be anticipated, such as crashes, failures and slow performance.
Benefits of shift-right testing
Shifting testing to the right provides developers with several potential benefits, including the following:
- Mitigates risk involved with continuous delivery.
- Ensures that software is production-ready.
- Enables developers to add, delete or change features based on feedback.
- Boosts software efficiency.
- Encourages teamwork among developers, quality assurance professionals, UX teams and customers.
- Supports faster product delivery.
- Catches bugs.
Shift-right testing vs. shift-left testing
Shift-left testing aims to incorporate testing as soon as possible with a focus on problem prevention rather than detection. Shift-left testing occurs early in the SDLC. Shift-right testing is the opposite of this and refers to moving testing to the right on a timeline.
While some traditionalists maintain that testing should occur before an application is released for production, others contend that this can create bigger, unforeseen issues. Advocates for shift-right testing believe that fully simulating the production environment in preproduction testing is difficult because some failures only surface once users interact with the application.
Some IT experts believe in combining shift-right testing with shift-left testing techniques to receive the best results. This works best for when software development is an infinite loop or broken into short iterations, in which teams work on small clusters of features simultaneously.
