What is Automation in Software Development? A Quick Overview!

You want to be sure that your systems and software are developed using the very best coding principles, whether you’re developing an app internally or you’ve decided to outsource it.

One of the best software development disciplines is automation. It’s crucial if you want to create outstanding software.

Here is what you need to know about the role of automation and why you should ensure that your development teams and outsourcing partners are utilizing it to its full potential.

What is Automation in Software Development?

If a developer needs to perform a task more than once, they can create a little piece of software or a bot that will complete the task for them rather than repeatedly writing the same code or going through the same procedure.

That’s called Automation in software development! 

Instead of getting your hands dirty and building the machines yourself, you build the robots that build the machines.

When in the process of development should it take place?

Where it truly helps is at this point. Automation is not limited to a single stage of the development process:

• Coding the same functionality simultaneously for several distinct projects? Automatize it.
• Need to quickly test new functionality and spin up a few servers in Rack space? Automatize it.
• Are you stress-testing a crucial system and hoping to find every bug there is? Automatize it.
• Need to swiftly update your infrastructure while maintaining server parity across the board? Automate it as much as you can!
• When your developers perform a process more than once, it’s time to automate it.

Now the question is –

Can you make everything automatic?

Yes, you can, and some businesses already do. As a holdover from Mark Zuckerberg’s former mantra of “move fast and break things,” Facebook is one example in particular that uses automated deployment to its production environments.

However, you cannot take the chance of doing this when working with core business systems. You need to be a little more cautious with your automation.

How Does Automation Work in Software Development?

We’ve discovered that when we concentrate primarily on automating QA and network deployment, our clients experience the best results.

QA Automation

Testing and quality control are crucial components of excellent software. It’s not the highest-level development assignment, though, so let’s be honest about it. The talents of your most seasoned developers are likely being wasted and taken away from something a little more valuable if they are all called in to break code.

Your team should create some bots to accomplish it in its place as a result. Although setting this up may take a little longer, once the automated code is in place, it can handle a sizable portion of the QA and free up your experienced developers to work on other projects.

They’ll be able to find the peculiar “one-in-a-million” bugs that a human couldn’t by programming a bot to run through a crucial system repeatedly every hour in the same way. They’ll likely be able to finish it a little quicker as well.

Deployment Automation

You’ll likely need some infrastructure to test and host the software, regardless of the kind of apps you’re planning to develop (or outsource, if that’s more your style). Additionally, if you want to scale, all of that hardware must be running the same operating systems and software.

Manually performing this can result in a variety of horrifying situations, including:

• The system goes offline when one server fails to update.
• Your developers must search through dozens of config files in search of the most recent version due to a significant server update.
• You end up paying the price and missing important deadlines as days of developer work are squandered on this.

You see what we mean! Automating this procedure makes deployment simple. Additionally, you can be sure that every single server that is provisioned or updated has the same software and specifications, eliminating any possibility of software conflicts.

Advantages of Automation in Software Development

A lot of wonderful things will start happening if your developers use automation properly:

• By reducing human error and eliminating more bugs than ever before, your software will improve.
• Because anyone can complete an automated task, experienced developers are freed up to focus on what they do best. Developers can now spend more time coding. Consequently, you can get value for your money.
• Environments can be deployed more quickly, which reduces the amount of time wasted while testing new features or upgrading infrastructure.

Exist any dangers?

Automation can only be used incorrectly if it isn’t used at all. This is accurate whether you’re considering a sizable coding firm or a one-man band.

Many organizations are concerned that the wrong automation code might bring errant components into the development processes. Although it’s possible, if your development teams are serious about automation, it won’t. Like any process, if it is correctly constructed, it improves everything and increases efficiency.

Any other possible drawbacks? 

Getting automation to operate properly can take some time. longer than if your engineers completed each task by hand, most likely. However, you’ll realize that it’s well worth the extra effort you might put into it once you view the kind of high-quality software it can assist in producing.

This is the main point. It’s time to find a new team if your development team or outsourcers aren’t adopting automation.

Let’s connect with Cloudester today!