What is Smoke Testing? Meaning, Process, and Benefits
Smoke testing assesses basic software components in the early stages of development to check if they “catch fire.”
Smoke testing is the practice of testing fundamental and core elements of a software program in the early phases of development to identify minor issues that might delay the product’s release. This article describes smoke testing and its role in the development process of software.
Table of Contents
What Is Smoke Testing?
Smoke testing is the practice of testing fundamental and core elements of a software program in the early phases of development to identify minor issues that might delay the product’s release.
At its core, smoke testing is used to establish whether the released software build is reliable or not. Smoke testing allows the quality assurance (QA) team to continue with additional software testing. It comprises a minimal collection of tests executed on every build to verify the software’s operation.
Often, smoke testing is known as build verification or confidence testing. It refers to a similarly fundamental form of testing where a build passes the test if it doesn’t “catch fire” on the first turn-on — hence the term smoke.
Smoke tests simply entail ensuring that the build being tested has no show-stopping bugs and that the critical functionalities function as intended. It is a fast and concise regression test of essential functions. It is a quick test that demonstrates the product is prepared for further checks and tests. Then it also makes it simpler to decide if the construct is so flawed that more testing could be an unfair use of resources and time.
By performing smoke testing, one can find the blocker bug early on and prevent the test engineer from being idle, or one can go further and examine the independent testable modules.
Smoke testing vs. sanity testing: are they the same?
It is a kind of testing that guarantees that the critical features of the software are functioning as intended. It’s used to test how well the system or product works and is referred to as a subset of acceptability testing. Sanity testing, however, is carried out to ensure that bugs are addressed following the build and is referred to as a division of regression testing.
Sometimes, smoke and sanity tests are mistaken for one another. However, they each have distinct goals and considerations.
Smoke testing is carried out to ensure that the program’s critical functionalities are operating as intended, and sanity testing is used to determine whether defects have been fixed since the build. Smoke testing is carried out to test the system or product’s stability. Sanity testing is done to evaluate the system’s or product’s logic through testing.
The software build may be stable or unstable during the smoke testing procedure. The software build is relatively reliable throughout sanity testing. Sanity testing is often carried out manually, without any automation techniques, compared to smoke testing, which can be carried out manually or by using automation tools.
See Morte: What Is TDD (Test Driven Development)? Process, Importance, and Limitations
Types of smoke testing
To fully understand the meaning of smoke testing, it is necessary to know its different types:
- Automated testing: The tool will do all necessary tests in this case. When there is a tight deadline for the project, it is beneficial. When a fresh build is ready to be deployed, developers can immediately check it with automation tests. The process can be automated using tools rather than depending on human testers. Automating your smoke testing allows you to spend less money and resources than you would otherwise on manual testers, dramatically increasing your company’s productivity. Immediately redeploy the build after making necessary corrections if the test is unsuccessful.
- Manual testing: Manual testing requires the tester to create, build, update, or modify the test cases for each generated product. If you choose the manual option, you will use human testers to perform your smoke tests. The tester must either create test scripts for already-existing features or brand-new functionalities. The execution of critical functionality testing should follow the distribution of the build to QA to uncover serious system problems. If testing is successful, functional testing continues further. If the test fails, the build is discarded and sent back to the production team for modification.
- Hybrid testing: Hybrid testing is the blending of manual and automated testing. In this situation, the tester must create their test cases and may use the tool to automate the tests. As it combines manual checking and tool use, the testing’s performance improves. The hybrid testing technique combines the most practical elements of the other two kinds. It entails using some test automation in the smoke testing procedure while utilizing a certain amount of manual human labor to evaluate the software. Since it combines the advantages of each, this method of testing has the edge over the other two.
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Smoke Testing Process
The smoke testing process is relatively simple and is among the most foundational stages in software development. Sometimes, it is not run as a separate process but is subsumed into the final QA by building smoke test cases. Let us explore this in more detail.
4 Steps of the smoke testing process
To conduct smoke testing, DevOps engineers and product teams must:
- Get ready for testing
Before executing a smoke test, one must determine the required number of test cases. If one cannot determine the number of test cases needed to ensure proper functionality, one will need to delay progress and recalculate. After successfully finishing the build but before testing their application, a person might need to perform setup processes.
It can be necessary to start a server, install licenses, set up database tables, or copy files to the right places. One should finish specific setup tasks after the build is complete and before testing begins. These activities include setting up licenses, storing data in various places, launching a server, and other related things.
Selecting the test cases for analysis should be the initial step for everybody. People should be able to get a clear picture of the product’s essential features from the test cases they choose. At the same time, people should refrain from using less significant testing features. The more tests conducted, the more reliable and practical the outcomes become.
- Develop smoke tests
Making the test suites needed for Step 3 of the smoke testing procedure comes next. To do this, one must prepare the test cases and test scripts and modify their approach to the tests they have selected (manual, hybrid, or automated). The next step is to write test scripts after deciding which smoke tests to perform.
A single script should always be used for smoke testing as a best practice. The versatility of testing is increased by using a single script. The following action is to compile the documents needed for their smoke test. Using the command line, a user of Perforce’s smoke testing tool would download many test files to the local disc.
The command lines that download the necessary files to the local drive for smoke testing vary depending on the software. As part of this process, confirming that the tests are appropriate for the kind of enterprise being operated is crucial. The test will fail if it cannot complete the workflow.
- Conduct smoke tests
The next step is to execute the smoke tests on the build after they have been created. After this is finished, one can proceed to evaluate the outcomes. One will have greater freedom if one uses a single smoke test script. One should launch their smoke test from their build tool. The analysis should be stored among several build files upon completion.
It is essential to notify the developers if anything does not function (accompanied by a script version). In this situation, the most crucial thing to remember is to adhere to the rules outlined in the previous steps. For example, one could want to make sure they have substitutes available in case several of the manual testers abruptly cancel.
By the time people reach this point, they ought to have already created the required preparations to handle those scenarios. Of course, unexpected events are always possible. It is crucial to actively participate in monitoring the procedure and keeping an eye out for problems because of this.
- Change your ways
One can send the product for functional and unit testing after the build passes the smoke test. If the test is unsuccessful, it is sent back for revision. Undoubtedly, during a development cycle, teams conduct several smoke tests. As a result, don’t be reluctant to send a product back to the designers for additional adjustments.
If one studies the results of their smoke tests, it will be simpler to determine whether the eventual outcome is successful or unsuccessful. The criteria for the quality of their software, for instance, would need to be relatively high if it’s a SaaS company, as was the case earlier. If 10% of the tests indicate an unstable build, they would likely like to return it for revisions.
However, other developers might consider the same percentage to be a stable threshold for a build. In other words, it’s essential to remember that one must adapt expectations to requirements throughout the analysis stage. After the smoke test, cleanup is required.
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When is the smoke testing process recommended?
Smoke testing occurs when a new program version is created and integrated with an already-deployed build in a QA or staging environment. It checks to see whether or not all crucial features are operating correctly. The development team deploys QA builds, and testers perform test cases on the build after removing a portion of them.
The purpose of this group of test cases is to reveal build-in errors. The QA team then moves on to functional testing if these tests are successful. One must hand back the system to the development team in the event of any failure, or it can progress to further stages (like being tested by an application security engineer) if it passes.
Users should always do smoke testing to ensure stability whenever the build is changed. A build contains all data sets, archives, usable modules, and technical components required to accomplish product functionality.
How can the smoke testing procedure be automated?
One may set automated smoke tests to occur often in production to ensure critical functionality is running as intended. If a run fails, one will be informed immediately so they may fix any serious flaws before they hurt too many users. When a fresh build is prepared for deployment, developers can examine it immediately with automation tests.
Whenever a new software build is readied for release, pre-recorded smoke tests are performed in concurrence with the construct rather than performing the tests manually. A smoke test suite should include a modest number of tests that run quickly, even if fully automated, to be effective and purpose-built.
The number of tests should be between 20 and 50, which is an acceptable range. This preliminary test suite’s goal could be defeated by either too little or too much coverage. Numerous automation tools are readily available, and multiple tool suppliers make various product promises. Most well-known technologies concentrate on browser-based automation, with Selenium currently holding the top spot for browser automation frameworks. Checking these operations for bugs identifies any issues with the program. These tests might be completed in a few days at most.
One should ensure they cover every area of the system while conducting this test on a software product’s initial release. By doing this, developers can carry out more smoke testing without waiting for the entire application to reach a stable state.
See More: What is Root-Cause Analysis? Working, Templates, and Examples
Benefits Of Smoke Testing
Through smoke testing, developers can unlock the following benefits:
1. Quicker bug troubleshooting for both new and regression issues
The development team can begin debugging and performing root cause analysis much sooner than waiting for the results of the entire test suite if any issues are discovered during smoke testing. This is because smoke testing suites have excellent coverage but shallow depth. When QA continues regression testing on a build with some viability while developers repair any flaws found during smoke tests, one can realize efficiency gains. The developers can next focus on correcting any bugs that QA discovered during the regression testing once the developers have fixed those bugs.
2. Increased testing efficiency
The testing team can save effort by using smoke testing. There is no value in wasting effort on a build full of bugs that hardly works. People prefer to rely on smoke testing to identify all instabilities because of this. Developers can then get rid of them early, ensuring that the foundation for each new release in agile software development, which builds upon the first, is sound and bug-free. In other words, smoke tests improve the core code’s dependability. They also make it easier for fresh builds to integrate because they will be less likely to have significant problems.
3. Show-stopping bugs recognized considerably early
One of smoke testing’s most significant benefits is the ability to identify problems in the system’s essential capabilities early. According to some Functionize customers, setting up and running an effective smoke testing suite allows them to find and repair as many as 80% of the defects they encounter. The 80/20 rule of Pareto is well-aligned with this. Smoke tests may only cover 20% or less of the total test cases for many teams, but they nevertheless manage to find 80% or more of the defects. Smoke testing efforts are worthwhile simply for this reason.
4. Integration-related threats are reduced
Smoke testing is beneficial for integrations that involve adding new capabilities to a preexisting software program, a common occurrence when utilizing CI/CD tools and methodologies. Fresh builds are used to add those features, and each one must first be tested. You may be sure that every part of the finished integrated program has been tested if the testing includes smoke testing.
The overall integration is smoother and more stable as a result. When people have evidence that the new content is reliable and devoid of software-breaking flaws, they also get to reduce the likelihood that their original build will reject the updated material.
5. Time and resources savings
Smoke tests often take 15 minutes to 2 hours, depending on how sophisticated the system is (worst case). Automating smoke testing can reduce the amount of time needed. Teams will spend less time searching the code for possible offenders if they can quickly and effectively identify the causes of problems using smoke testing.
That saves money and time, mainly if a team doesn’t utilize automation much. To elaborate on the previous point on automation, one can completely automate the smoke testing procedure. This list’s subsequent item will provide more context for that idea.
6. The potential to automate
Both time and resources are significantly saved through automation. Bots are always quicker than humans in completing tasks and workflows. While procedures that rely on human ingenuity and creativity cannot be automated, smoke testing may be done by AI-based (AI) systems, which can significantly cut testing time.
There are many advantages to choosing automation. Ensuring that a procedure is executed to the same standard each time it is automated offers several benefits. Therefore, developers can do away with the unpredictable nature of human error. Also possible is increasing the frequency of testing.
7. High in adaptability
One can maximize smoke testing without using any automation at all. This is due to the process’s high degree of flexibility and agility. There will always be at least one smoke test that meets one’s needs because there are three different sorts. Despite how fantastic it might be, not everyone should use automation. However, developers may still perform a smoke test by hand if they decide against automation. As we’ve seen in the section that goes into more detail about this strategy, it has its own benefits. Additionally, smoke testing is not just confined to automated and manual testing.
See More: Top 10 DevOps Automation Tools in 2021
Takeaway
Smoke testing is one of the key concepts to remember when developing test cases for a software product. Instead of diving into the nitty gritty of the software code, it looks for fundamental problems that could cause severe failure. Passing the smoke test successfully is essential to building a software application ready for release. That is why it has to be high up on your DevOps lifecycle’s continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline.
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