Zephyr Brings Power of the Cloud to Better Integrate Tooling for Continuous Testing & DevOps

Zephyr has launched ZAPI in the Cloud, an add-in module to extend its flagship Zephyr for JIRA test management offering to help teams manage all aspects of their testing lifecycle.  ZAPI in the Cloud provides REST API-level integrations better support continuous testing and DevOps. 

by Yves de Montcheuil (@ydemontcheuil)

Tags: agile, APIs, CI, cloud, JIRA, DevOps, QA, query, REST, testing, tooling, Zephyr,

Integrating testing into the project cycle is becoming increasingly important for agile development and DevOps teams to more efficiently track software quality and to more quickly make empowered go/no-go decisions.

 

Zephyr is advancing its test management capabilities by leveraging the cloud.

 

The result: ZAPI in the Cloud extends its flagship Zephyr for JIRA test management offering to better help teams manage all aspects of their testing lifecycle.  ZAPI in the Cloud is expressly designed as an add-in module to work with Zephyr for JIRA. It provides REST API-level integrations to deliver requests on the JIRA platform to integrate automation and continuous integration tools. 

 

These and other new capabilities will contribute to teams being able to build and deploy an efficient DevOps environment, according Zephyr’s vice president of engineering Hamesh Chawla.

 

ZAPI in the Cloud delivers the following capabilities:

  • Zephyr for JIRA can support ZAPI deployments in the cloud
  • ZAPI promotes easier access to Zephyr’s testing data, including the ability to view and upload data programmatically
  • ZAPI also allows Zephyr for JIRA to read/write testing-related data via REST APIs - this can be used to query test cycles, fetch tests and test cycles, update test results, create new tests, and more
  • ZAPI’s REST APIs can integrate to any automation and/or continuous integration tools with well documented and supported REST APIs

 

To power these capabilities, ZAPI in the Cloud sports these features:  

  • Integrate Automation and CI Tools: ZAPI hooks automation and continuous integration tools to Zephyr for JIRA, letting users retrieve tests for execution and programmatically update their results.
  • RESTful APIs: well documented RESTful APIs let users create tests and execution cycles, update execution status, add attachments, and retrieve information about users, projects, releases, tests and execution cycles.
  • Zephyr Query Language (ZQL) searches: users can create ZQL based saved search filters in Zephyr for JIRA and retrieve that data to create custom reports, integrate to bespoke solutions and to communicate with other systems.

 

 

The combination of ZAPI Cloud and Zephyr for JIRA “creates endless testing possibilities for project teams in the cloud,” Chawla added, “giving users enhanced abilities to execute tests in a free form way and leverage the REST APIs to unify testing data across multiple systems.”

 

Zephyr Pushes Continuous Testing To Promote a 2-Way, DevOps Pipeline

In a recent blog post, Zephyr’s vice president of client services Sanjay Zalavadia explained how the company’s approach offers a way to build “a continuous, two-way DevOps software pipeline” to streamline collaboration and speed up delivery of impactful software projects.  

Because DevOps is a cultural shift that promotes collaboration between development, quality assurance and operations, there is no one single product that can be considered the definitive DevOps tool.  Often, a collection of tools from a variety of vendors, are used in one or more stages of the DevOps toolchain. 

Almost all DevOps environments use an agile project management and product development methodology that promotes frequent interaction between an IT department and business users, and tries to regularly build and deliver software that meets business users' changing requirements.  This means, in effect, building a continuous, two-way DevOps software pipeline between you and your customers.

ZAPI in the Cloud Uses APIs to Extend Zephyr for JIRA Capabilities  

ZAPI in the Cloud is expressly built to leverage Zephyr for JIRA, already in use by more than 10,000 customers in 100 countries to manage quality assurance processes and produce high quality software efficiently and on time, according to Chawla.

 

“Zephyr for JIRA integrates testing into the project cycle,” Chawla said in a statement. Test issues can be created, executed, tracked and reported on just like any other JIRA issue. The solution is embedded within JIRA screens, making it easy for teams to start realizing the benefits of full featured test management inside JIRA, he said. 

 

As part of Zephyr’s commitment to deliver high-quality testing products that complement Atlassian tools, Chawla noted these benefits:

Agile Ready: visualize all test executions by story; get a better sense of what has been tested and its level of quality, link features between the Test Cycles and Sprints, and track status and quality metrics with burn-down charts and test boards.

 

Quality Metrics: get deep insight into project status with execution cycles, executions by testers, and execution details as well as track software quality with multiple metrics and configurable gadgets to display data.

 

Automation & Continuous Integration: enhance the testing experience by integrating with automation tools like Selenium, continuous integration tools like Bamboo or Jenkins.

ZAPI in the Cloud is available on the Atlassian Marketplace and requires Zephyr for JIRA to be installed.

 




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