Matan Goren QA Automation Tech Lead

Automations in a

Continuous Deployment

Environment

Who we are

• More than 82 million registered users• 28 million family trees• Website, mobile apps (iOS and Android), desktop apps

(windows and Mac)• 2.6 billion profiles (names in family trees)• 7 billion historical documents and records. Including the

world’s largest collection of newspapers• 200 million photos• 42 languages• 275 employees

• All manual QA • Repetitive tasks• Time consuming

• Two service packs a week• Holding back development• SPC size limits error handling

Where we were

• Number of tests • Desktop Chrome: 650 (469)• Desktop IE: 552 (0)• Mobile-web 90 (0)• Initial test suites for iOS and Android apps

• Runtime of full suite: 35 min for chrome + 32 min for all mobile-web devices (51 min)

• Grids: 4 (1)• Tests run on prod and semi staging env• Continuous Deployment

Where we are today

“In software, when something is painful, the way to reduce the pain is to do it more frequently, not less.” - David Farley

• We moved to CD a year ago• On average we distribute code to production 25 times

per day• Comes with challenges• Automated tests on every code release• Only minimal tests on each release• Dev is responsible to run appropriate tests PRE-RELEASE

in staging

The CD mindset

• Risk reduction to production• Small incremental changes are easier to monitor and

revert in necessary• Has lower impact on the system

• Increasing R&D velocity• Avoiding wasted time on merges and complex

coordination before dist• Allow R&D and product to experiment and innovate

more frequently

RND Goals

• Provide a safety net• Avoid the bottleneck of manual sanity testing• Reliability

• No flaky tests• No false failures

• QA E2E test should not be the new bottleneck

QA Goals

• Continuous Deployment Applied at MyHeritage – SlideShare

Run Unit Tests

Canary Server

Pre-dist E2E tests

Dist

Post-dist E2E tests

Start CD flow

CD Flow (simplified)

• QA are responsible for E2E tests only• Dev write and maintain Unit tests• E2E tests are written during development process • All QA members monitor CD suite results• CD E2E tests are NOT acceptance tests

Responsibilities

• CD flow from commit to prod is ~25 minutes• Current QA CD suite takes 3 minutes on average• Runs in parallel to some of the jobs in the CD flow

• Limited by time frame of parallel jobs• Still have room for further growth

Timing

• Minimal suite – No full regression on commit• Each Dev is responsible to run the desired

Automated regression tests• Reliability

• Monitor a new test before adding it to the CD suite

• Velocity of tests• Run parallel tests (currently up to 16)• Write new CD dedicated tests if existing tests are

too long• Add hardware if needed

Challenges of CDAnd how we face them

• Failure visibility• Slack messages for individual failed tests• Browser console logs in report• Screenshots in report• Post dist – production server logs in the report

(Using Elasticsearch)• Large scale tests refactoring due to changes

• Ability to run tests with a patch instead of committing code that doesn’t correspond to production

Challenges of CD cont.

• CD halt on failure• Fast response time for failure. All QA members

monitor the relevant channel in slack• Fast adaptation to feature flags

• Implemented feature flags for tests

Challenges of CD cont.

• Handling A\B tests• All AB tests can be controlled with a cookie.• All tests start with control-group variants set in the

cookies• If needed, set a desired variant by replacing the

cookie.

Challenges of CD cont.

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“You don't have to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate to be successful. You just need a framework and a dream.”- Michael Dell

• Ruby• Cucumber.io• Page-Object Gem• Grid Grouper

• Cuke_Slicer gem• Jenkins• Watir-webdriver• Selenium Grid/Grid Extras• Appium

• Appium_lib• Xcode simulator

Framework

• Easy language for inexperienced developers• Open source community is very active• It ain’t Java!

Ruby

• Native to Ruby• Cleaner than Selenium• Adds methods not native to Selenium

• “Being able to select an element by a explicit identifier” –watirmelon.com

Watir-webdriver

• Provides a simple interface to define and interact with elements on a page

• Works with both Watir and Selenium• Simple way of introducing OOP without a lot of technical

knowledge required• Page factory module handles common page classes

action

Page-Object gem

• BDD tool• Tests are written in plain English

• Makes for easy debugging• Easy move from Manual test to automatic test

• Helps soften the introduction to programming• “Top down” programming

• Write a step• Define the step• Make it work

• Pre and post test hooks

Cucumber.io

Directly with Watir-WebdriverUsing page-object

Tags specify the suites

Cucumber Feature

Directly with Watir-Webdriver

Using page-object

Step Definitions

Using page-object

Defining page-object

Verify page loaded with page-object

Page-object example

• Tests run nightly on the build or on demand• Using two Mac minis as test machines• Device parameters are passed from Jenkins (or

configuration if running locally)• The apps are built on the tests machines and deployed

to the simulator\emulator• Support for iOS and Android within existing infra• iOS simulator, Android emulator and Appium server are

opened by command from within the code

Native Mobile Apps

• Support for iOS and Android within existing infra

Native Mobile Apps

• iOS simulator, Android emulator and Appium server are opened by command from within the code

Native Mobile Apps

Native Mobile Test Flow

• Start E2E flow• Build App• Start test flow• Open simulator\emulator• Open Appium server• Start Appium driver• Perform test• Close Appium driver• Close Appium server• Build Report• Send slack notifications and emails

• Homegrown tool• Takes a given suite and distributes the test across several

groups• Utilizes cuke_slicer gem• Checks the feature flags and filters out tests that are

turned off• Multiple reports problem is solved by a report merger

tool that was developed in house

Grid Grouper

• Chuck Norris!• Was already in use by RND• Open source (lot’s of available plugins)• Schedule automated builds• Kick off manual builds with a few clicks

• Control build parameters (server, suite, etc)• Can build in any of our environments with any

combination of tags• Holds build history for a specified amount of time• Merged report is stored in each build• Slack and email notifications

Jenkins

• Comprised of Selenium Grid and Selenium-Grid-Extras• Selenium-Grid-Extras makes the basic setup streamlined• Gives extra features such as:

• Pulling in updated drivers for all browsers• Also for Selenium itself

The Grids

• We have 4 grids• Each grid has 4 VMs• The VMs include 1 hub-node and 3 other nodes• The hubs are Jenkins slaves• Each node can run 4 parallel tests on Chrome

• One grid is dedicated to CD• We can pull a grid “offline” for testing infra upgrades• Ability to have multiple test runs in parallel on different

environments and tags• Only runs through Jenkins

• Jenkins selects grids automatically based on availability and run history

How we use the grids

“A challenge only becomes an obstacle when you bow to it.” - Ray A. Davis

• Maintaining production data integrity• Reliance on pre-existing data• Running on local staging env• Identifying failure reasons• Need a true BDD/TDD mindset

Challenges QA faces

Questions?

AA Milne

Thanks!

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