THE DZONE GUIDE TO

SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
LIFECYCLE
QA AND TESTING VOLUME II

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DZONE.COM/GUIDES DZONE’S 2016 GUIDE TO SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE: QA & TESTING, VOLUME II

QUICK VIEW

Executive Insights 01 The key to developing better

software more quickly is
to follow a DevOps/CI/CD

on the Software 02
methodology automating as
many processes as possible.

The proliferation of

Development Lifecycle
architectures, frameworks,
and languages has led to the
necessity to adopt DevOps/
CI/CD and automation.

03 The future for developers

is DevOps. Start embracing
operations and DevOps
methodologies or be
BY TOM SMITH left behind.
RESEARCH ANALYST AT DZONE

To gather insights on the state of the software KEY FINDINGS

development lifecycle, we spoke with 19 01 The keys to developing software in a timely manner is
executives at 16 different companies involved following an Agile/DevOps methodology and all of the elements

in software development for themselves and inherent in that methodology—communicating throughout the
software development team, continuous delivery, continuous
software development services for their clients.
integration, fast iteration, and automation of all manual tasks to
Specifically, we spoke to: facilitate further acceleration of the process. Start by spending
time on discovering what the client and end user wants and
SAM REHMAN, CTO, Arxan plan how to deliver it. Have a culture where people are excited
JOHN BASSO, CIO and Co-Founder, Amadeus Consulting about putting out high-quality software and learning what can
be done to improve based on customer feedback.
JOHN PURRIER, CTO, Automic

LASZLO SZALVAY, Director of Sales and Partnerships, cPrime 02 The biggest changes in the development of software
SCOTT ROSE, Senior Director of Product Management, and have been the proliferation of architectures, frameworks, and
languages. However, the movement from Waterfall to Agile/
MIKA ANDERSON, Product Manager, CollabNet
DevOps has made it possible for apps to build to scale reliably
JEAN CAJIDE, VP of Corporate Development and
through replication and automation, leading to greater quality
SAMER FALLOUH, VP of Engineering, Dialexa and predictability in the software development lifecycle. Teams
ANDREAS GRABNER, Technology Strategist, and are collaborating on a regular basis and cycle times are in hours
and minutes rather than weeks and days. Every step of the
BRETT HOFER, Global DevOps Practice Leader, Dynatrace
development process is faster due to the technology and less
ANDERS WALLGREN, CTO, Electric Cloud manual intervention. In addition, Agile-based platforms are
ALEXANDER POLYKOV, CTO, ERPScan designed for connectivity, which is critical given the different
platforms and operating systems upon which applications need
BARUCH SADOGURSKY, Developer Advocate, JFrog
to work.
ROB JUNCKER, VP of Engineering, LANDESK

MIKE STOWE, Developer Relations Manager, MuleSoft 03 While more than 50 solutions were mentioned, the
ZEEV AVIDAN, VP of Product Management, OpenLegacy technical solutions most frequently mentioned were Java,
Node.js, .NET, open source, and PHP. Several companies are
JOAN WRABETZ, CTO, Quali
building their own solutions on top of open-source platforms.
SUSHIL KUMAR, Chief Marketing Officer, Robin Systems All the respondents seemed to be using a range of technical
NIKHIL KAUL, Product Marketing Manager, SmartBear solutions to ensure they’d have the right tools for the job

16 DZONE’S GUIDE TO SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE: QA AND TESTING, VOLUME II

DZONE.COM/GUIDES DZONE’S 2016 GUIDE TO SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE: QA & TESTING, VOLUME II

based on their customers’ needs and wants, as well as to client whose core business is not IT. We need to be concerned
optimize performance. with how our clients digest all of these changes. Fiefdoms and
silos need to be taken down to evolve to a DevOps culture.
04 The real world problems companies are trying to solve People in established enterprises are afraid of change and
involve helping build software that helps run companies. what it will mean for their jobs. They’re not being objective
This may entail a new product or service to enable a client about what is in the best interest of the organization to succeed
to succeed quickly, inexpensively, and flexibly. One provider moving forward.
enables companies to test their applications in a “real world”
sandbox without going into production while another provides 08 Skills most frequently mentioned as needed by developers
automation systems that enable companies to scale out to create software that delivers value to customers include
into bigger containers and microservices. Several provide understanding customer needs and wants, staying up to
visibility and control over the software development pipeline date with current technologies, and taking an interest in
and complete insight into the health of the application with operations since that’s where the future lies. Developers need to
method-level granularity. Many enterprise companies need understand what users are looking for and put the users at the
to overcome technical debt and move towards more Agile center of what they’re developing. They should build apps that
methods, as well as efficiently managing demand to integrate are easy for users to get around. In the end, customers are often
a variety of systems. more concerned with the fact that it works and is usable. Get
code in front of customers and get feedback early. You cannot
05 The most common issues affecting software development iterate quality in. Be knowledgeable about scalability and large-
today are: 1) lack of planning; 2) time to market; 3) lack of cloud offerings. Stay on top of new developments, but shift left.
awareness of security issues; and 4) cultural issues that hinder Testing is moving to developers. While you would rather learn
the adoption of a DevOps methodology. The standards for a new language than operations, very soon there will just be
software development are out there, but they’re not enforced. DevOps engineers and leftover developers. Value will be added,
This causes trouble with integration and the speed with which and significant salary earned by DevOps engineers.
systems and tools are moving leads to faster deprecation with
tools not being supported. Minimizing time to market is the 09 As usual, respondents have a variety of different
greatest benefit of Docker and automation, which can handle considerations with regards to software development today:
greater complexity and customization. Many companies are
not aware of security issues and it’s a challenge ensuring users • The credibility of the sources developers are using, including
are secure with everyone interacting with multiple applications open source, which is disrupting commercial tools.
and platforms. Lastly, fiefdoms and governance models that are
• What gets priority—due dates or features?
already in place need to change from silos to making developers
responsible for a stable environment and administrators used • We need to keep an eye on the skillset gap of the people we
to the changes needed for continuous integration (CI) and are hiring and plan for the development of people in school
continuous delivery (CD). to be better prepared for the jobs that we’ll need talent for in
the future.
06 The biggest opportunities for improvement in the
• We need to talk about deployment and operation in addition
development of software are getting standards nailed down and
to development to ensure end users are having a good
enforced to help the software development lifecycle become
experience with the application. How can we help improve
smaller and more nimble, and to have a faster release by
the quality of apps at the beginning of development?
automating development, testing, and monitoring. Ultimately,
enterprises will be able to develop software with the same ease • Are developers moving into testing and development? Do
and speed as start-ups. A large enterprise can interact across they understand the need to do so? Do they view DevOps as
functional groups to increase velocity and quality, which in turn an opportunity or a disruptor?
adds value of the product. DevOps, CI, and CD enable process
• What’s the next thing to disrupt software development?
optimization. Getting problems solved upstream mitigates time
Containers and microservices are changing the game
and effort waste downstream.
today—what’s on the horizon? Where do truly innovative
companies like Apple come up with their ideas? We need to
07 The biggest concerns around software development today
be able to trace the evolution of ideas.
are security, complexity/rate of change, and that culture change
needs to implement DevOps. People don’t realize the need to be
concerned about security around applications. As IoT grows, it
TOM S M I T H is a Research Analyst at DZone who excels
reaches deeper into our lives. The opportunity for mischief or at gathering insights from analytics—both quantitative and
errors is greater. We’ve lost the focus on the privacy of users’ qualitative—to drive business results. His passion is sharing
data. As tech is changing at a rapid pace, it’s difficult to stay information of value to help people succeed. In his spare time, you
abreast of all the changes. Particularly, it’s impossible for a can find him either eating at Chipotle or working out at the gym.

17 DZONE’S GUIDE TO SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE: QA AND TESTING, VOLUME II