A systematic mapping study on software testing in the devops context

DevOps is a philosophy and framework that allows software development and operations teams to work in a coordinated manner, with the purpose of developing and releasing software quickly and cheaply. However, the effectiveness and benefits of DevOps depend on several factors, as reported in the literature. In particular, several studies have been published on software test automation, which is a cornerstone for the continuous integration phase in DevOps, which needs to be identified and classified. This study consolidates and classifies the existing literature on automated tests in the DevOps context. For the study, a systematic mapping study was performed to identify and classify papers on automated testing in DevOps based on 8 research questions. In the query of 6 relevant databases, 3,312 were obtained; and then, after the selection process, 299 papers were selected as primary studies. Researchers maintain a continuing and growing interest in software testing in the DevOps context. Most of the research (71.2%) is carried out in the industry and is done on web applications and SOA. The most reported types of tests are unit and integration tests.