AWS announced the preview of the Amazon Q Developer integration in GitHub.
Industry experts offer thoughtful, insightful, and often controversial predictions on how DevOps and related technologies will evolve and impact business in 2022. Part 7, the final installment, covers quality and testing.
Start with: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 1
Start with: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 2
Start with: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 3
Start with: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 4
Start with: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 5
Start with: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 6
STILL STRUGGLING WITH: WHO OWNS SOFTWARE QUALITY?
Unfortunately, I think we're going to continue to see organizations struggle with determining who should "own" software quality. We've been watching this battle for decades, and I'm not sure we're all that close to seeing it come to a close. First it was in-house testers, then companies looked to off-shore or near-shore testing, then it came back internally, while other companies got rid of their testing teams entirely. Then, orgs wanted to just automate "all" their testing; that proved impossible and completely ill-advised, and currently, we're seeing orgs look to move as much of their testing as possible over to their engineers. Personally, I think the answer is that everyone should own software quality, and organizations owe it to their customers to make it as easy as possible for any employee, not just developers or testers, to find and report bugs, collect invaluable feedback from customers, and quickly remediate issues. I don't think we get there in 2022, but my hope is that we make progress.
Noel Wurst
Software Testing Evangelist and Sr. Manager, Communications, SmartBear(link is external)
QUALITY DEFINED BY USER EXPERIENCE
As organizations double down on digital, the concept of quality will evolve from "does it work" to "is it the best experience." However, the race to deliver innovation to market faster than competitors is causing challenges for software teams. More frequent releases multiplied by an explosion of device/browser combinations and increased application complexity — due to dependencies on internal microservices, third party services or content management systems — has exponentially increased the complexity of software quality. As we look towards 2022, dev teams will need ways to get faster feedback on quality pre-release (such as accelerating cross-browser/device validation) and shift-right practices (such as "testing in production") to capture regressions in the digital experience introduced post-release by dependencies outside of their control.
Mark Lambert
VP and Evangelist, Applitools(link is external)
COMPLIANCE AS CODE
As CIOs and DevOp leaders enter 2022, development test environments will see an increase in adopting compliance as code. Enforcing policies that are testable, enforceable, shareable, trusted and actionable will be the top priority throughout the next year.
Prashanth Nanjundappa
Senior Director and Head of Chef Products, Progress(link is external)
TEST AUTOMATION
Now that test automation is becoming very broadly adopted and security scanning and DevSecOps is well on the way, the focus is shifting to the remaining areas that still have the potential to impact code (including infrastructure as code) as it heads to production. New areas include the automated use of sophisticated and auditable governance and the security and automation of configuration data changes.
Anand Ahire
Senior Director, Product Management, DevOps, ServiceNow(link is external)
Automated testing needs to work on a business process level, across application boundaries because it is an integral part of any DevOps pipeline. The focus of test automation shifts from automatic execution of tests, and toward automation of test environment management, automation of test authoring, and automation of the analysis of test results. The combination of exploratory testing and continuous automation will continue to gain steam in 2022, while traditional plan-driven testing with a formal user acceptance stage will continue to diminish in practice. Application testers need to learn to work with APIs in addition to testing through the user interface. Both automated testing and telemetry will be used to shift testing both left and right at the same time.
Esko Hannula
VP of Product Line Management, Copado(link is external)
AI/ML AND TESTING
In software engineering the next evolution is to use ML in the development pipeline to cut the testing bottleneck and give developers the right signal earlier.
Harpreet Singh
Co-CEO & Co-Founder, Launchable(link is external)
HIGH VELOCITY TEST SIGNALS
We, in the DevOps community, are going to see a continued expansion in high velocity test signals that need to be integrated into the SDLC to ensure confidence in customer experience. Quality is directly connected to business growth.
Matt Wyman
Chief Product Officer, Sauce Labs(link is external)
TESTING IN PRODUCTION
In a world where exact production circumstances matter ever more for stability and security, testing in pre-production is increasingly meaningless. That's why I predict that testing will become a production-time activity 2022. Consequently, the ability to test in production—as well as to control the fallout from such tests — will become essential.
Tobias Kunze
CEO and Co-Founder, Glasnostic(link is external):
ACCESSIBILITY TESTING
Recent research shows that the pandemic has had a significant positive impact on digital accessibility awareness as organizations were forced to think digital-first. Mature DevOps organizations are automating accessibility testing with a rate of efficiency and velocity never seen before. This trend will accelerate further as Dev Teams get better at advocating for people with disabilities and obtain proportionate resources and funding needed to include accessibility testing in their existing testing practices."
Dylan Barrrell
CTO, Deque Systems(link is external)
Whether driven by fear of litigation or by the promise of increasing audience (and revenue), 2022 will see software companies increasing their investment in making their products accessible. Studies show that companies lose billions in revenue to competitors with more accessible websites, and this number will only grow — unless companies invest in better tooling and more widespread adoption.
Marcus Merrell
Senior Director of Technology Strategy, Sauce Labs(link is external)
Go to: 2022 Kubernetes Predictions
Industry News
The OpenSearch Software Foundation, the vendor-neutral home for the OpenSearch Project, announced the general availability of OpenSearch 3.0.
Wix.com announced the launch of the Wix Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server.
Pulumi announced Pulumi IDP, a new internal developer platform that accelerates cloud infrastructure delivery for organizations at any scale.
Qt Group announced plans for significant expansion of the Qt platform and ecosystem.
Testsigma introduced autonomous testing capabilities to its automation suite — powered by AI coworkers that collaborate with QA teams to simplify testing, speed up releases, and elevate software quality.
Google is rolling out an updated Gemini 2.5 Pro model with significantly enhanced coding capabilities.
BrowserStack announced the acquisition of Requestly, the open-source HTTP interception and API mocking tool that eliminates critical bottlenecks in modern web development.
Jitterbit announced the evolution of its unified AI-infused low-code Harmony platform to deliver accountable, layered AI technology — including enterprise-ready AI agents — across its entire product portfolio.
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software, and Synadia announced that the NATS project will continue to thrive in the cloud native open source ecosystem of the CNCF with Synadia’s continued support and involvement.
RapDev announced the launch of Arlo, an AI Agent for ServiceNow designed to transform how enterprises manage operational workflows, risk, and service delivery.
Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd.(link is external) announced that its Quantum Firewall Software R82 — the latest version of Check Point’s core network security software delivering advanced threat prevention and scalable policy management — has received Common Criteria EAL4+ certification, further reinforcing its position as a trusted security foundation for critical infrastructure, government, and defense organizations worldwide.
Postman announced full support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP), helping users build better AI Agents, faster.
Opsera announced new Advanced Security Dashboard capabilities available as an extension of Opsera's Unified Insights for GitHub Copilot.