Thriving in a Changing Landscape-Navigating the Intersection of AI, DevOps, and Testing

Posted On: 8 June 2023

According to the 2023 Gitlab Global DevSecOps Report, 62% of developers using AI and ML say that they're employing AI to check code. This is reflective of the recent AI prowess, especially when you consider that only 51% of the developers were doing the same in 2022.

To that end, this article will explore the following:

The Role of AI in DevOps
DevOps Engineering Just Got a Major Boost – Thanks to ChatGPT!
Benefits of ChatGPT in DevOps
How DevOps Testing Initiatives Benefit from AI’s Prowess?

The Role of AI in DevOps

For many years now, the use of AI technology in DevOps has enhanced both software development and testing process. For example, here are some of the findings of the 2022 DevSecOps global survey conducted by Gitlab:

24% of DevOps practitioners had leveraged AI and ML technology. This was more than double the percentage in 2021.
Over 30% of development teams were using AI and ML in their code review process.
Only 5% of DevOps teams reported having no plan to incorporate AI in their application development initiatives.

AI and DevOps complement each other perfectly. DevOps practices generate a lot of data and require automation to maximize efficiency. AI can detect useful data patterns and identify inefficiencies in the DevOps framework that result in errors. Now with ChatGPT breaking into the scene, this relationship is further evolving.

DevOps Engineering Just Got a Major Boost - Thanks to ChatGPT!

As an AI-based language model, ChatGPT is proving to be a valuable asset for DevOps teams. For example, DevOps teams can now delegate any manual or repetitive tasks (previously performed by human resources) to ChatGPT. Consider this; ChatGPT can manage common challenges like troubleshooting poor network connectivity or system failures. This frees up operations teams to focus on complex tasks and improve their efficiency.

Here are some of the common use cases (or applications) of ChatGPT in DevOps environments:

1. Creating Automated Scripts

With ChatGPT, DevOps teams can create and use programming scripts to execute manual or repetitive tasks. For instance, this AI tool can create a Python script to automate the deployment of web applications to the server.

2. Streamlining Docker Workflows

3. Creating CI/CD Pipelines

ChatGPT can analyze software codes and error logs. With this capability, it can effectively automate multiple stages of the CI/CD pipeline. These stages include code testing, deployment, and monitoring. DevOps teams can also easily integrate ChatGPT with CI/CD tools like Jenkins and GitLab.

Your business guide to codeless test automation

Ready to execute continuous test automation without writing a single code?

HOW IT WORKS?

Next, let's discuss the benefits of using ChatGPT in DevOps.

Benefits of ChatGPT in DevOps

ChatGPT in DevOps accrues the following benefits:

1. Reduces Human Errors

ChatGPT can reduce human errors by automating multiple DevOps tasks. This includes functions like application deployment and testing. With natural language commands, ChatGPT can also monitor DevOps infrastructure and analyze error logs. This saves valuable time and money for DevOps teams.

2. Improves DevOps Team Collaboration

ChatGPT serves as a "virtual assistant" for DevOps team members by providing them with real-time support and responses to technical queries. Besides, DevOps teams can use ChatGPT as a knowledge-sharing tool to share their best practices and learnings.

3. Helps Meet All Industry Regulations

ChatGPT also ensures that the company complies with all industry regulations and policies. For instance, it can contribute to the development of data security policies pertaining to different standards, thus, allowing DevOps teams to be on top of regulatory adherence.

4. Integrates with ChatOps Tools

To improve team communication and collaboration, DevOps teams can also integrate ChatGPT with popular ChatOps tools like Slack or MS Teams. As an example, a ChatGPT bot can update the DevOps teams on the current deployment status or any incident alert. This is how ChatGPT can amplify team productivity and efficiency.

Now that we understand its benefits, let's see how ChatGPT (and AI in general) can power DevOps test automation.

How DevOps Testing Initiatives Benefit from AI's Prowess?

Powered by AI, test automation tools now play an essential role in DevOps testing. Effectively, AI-powered tools can improve the efficiency, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness of test automation initiatives.

One of the use cases of AI in test automation is to automatically generate new test cases and datasets and analyze test results quickly and accurately. With these tools, DevOps testing teams can move from partial automation to complete automation, thus improving the software testing process and the quality of their applications.

Here are some areas in software testing where AI-powered test automation tools are making a difference:

Usability Testing

With a comprehensive test automation platform, DevOps QA teams can ensure their application is usable across devices, operating systems, and browsers. This reduces the time spent on manual forms of usability testing.

Security Testing

Most organizations are concerned about data security, and understandably so. Favorably, AI-powered test automation tools can test and monitor applications for any security flaws and reduce the probability of human errors seeping in.

AI tools like ChatGPT can also help DevOps developers by performing tasks like:

Automating code generation and optimization
Automatically generating documentation for the application
Assisting with accurate code review and bug fixing
Improving code design and structure through automated refactoring

However, businesses must be cognizant of the security issues associated with ChatGPT. For example, recently, OpenAI reported a data breach in the chatbot that exposed substantial user-specific content. Of course, as technology evolves, these issues will subside to a great extent. But that still doesn't take away from being aware of the security concerns.

Summing Up

In sum, with the emergence of ChatGPT, DevOps testing has become more seamless, thanks to automation capabilities like generating test cases, analyzing error logs, and testing CI/CD pipelines.

As it stands, test automation platforms provide the right intersection of AI-powered tools in any DevOps environment. With the AI-enabled codeless test automation platform, ACCELQ provides robustness to any DevOps testing process with the following functionalities: