Companies today are adopting CI/CD pipelines as a means to facilitate faster deployment of software and minimize their chances of failing, with the time required for deploying applications that once took several months being reduced to less than a day or even hours.
As a result of these changes, it is simple to deduce that if a network is not tested and evaluated continuously, then CI/CD pipelines cannot be trusted to deliver consistently.
In this article, we will discuss how incorporating continuous testing into the development process enhances the integrity of CI/CD pipelines in modern networks, why traditional methods for testing networks will not meet the current needs of enterprises that deploy software, and how organizations can safely accelerate their ability to deploy software while minimizing their overall operational risks.
Why it has become increasingly difficult to predict network based failures
Before, traditional networks were often relatively stable. When it came to changes, they rarely happened and with a lot of control as per Netpicker.
Today’s environment is very different.
Today’s networks have many dimensions. They include:
- Distributed cloud and hybrid cloud
- Microservices and containerized applications
- Software-defined networking and overlays on your local or virtual network
- Dynamic security policies and segmentation
Multiple application deployments can change how multiple networks interact through many paths.
Because problems do not have a clear indication of being “down” as a complete failure, they manifest themselves as slow response times, intermittent failures, or security exposures as per Netpicker.
Without continuous testing of the network, these types of issues can be very difficult to detect early on.
What does continuous network testing actually mean?
Continuous network testing applies to the network the same way CI/CD does to applications.
Rather than waiting for a large milestone, there will be regular and automatic validations associated with each change that occurs to the network.
Broadly speaking, continuous network testing will provide answers to the following questions:
- Will the traffic continue to flow correctly?
- Will the performance of the network continue to be acceptable?
- Will security policies / compliance policies continue to be applied?
These questions are answered before and after the implementation of changes to the network.
What are the types of continuous network testing?
Continuous testing of networks is more than just one activity
There are multiple different levels of tests to validate and confirm that all the tests were completed successfully and are working as expected.
- Connectivity & Path Testing
Connectivity & path tests ensure that all endpoints can communicate as they should. They also validate segmentation boundaries, failover behavior, and routing paths.
As an example of the tests completed, tests are run to validate that there is connectivity for traffic to the new service through the correct path before deploying the new service. In addition, segmentation are provably intact and can be routed.
- Configuration & Policy Validation
There is a constant source of outages and security incidents when an organization experiences configuration drift.
Continuous testing compares the actual state of the network against the intended, approved state. If there is a configuration change that adds an unexpected routing policy, access control, or an unwanted firewall rule, that would be flagged as soon as it occurred as per Netpicker.
- Performance Validation
Many times, silent degradation of performance will cause far greater damage to users than complete failure and often takes longer to acknowledge.
Through continuous testing we have applied testing to latency, packet loss, or throughput changes that enable teams to identify performance regressions sooner.
- Security & Compliance Testing
Security controls must remain intact regardless of how the network is altered.
Continuous testing validates that segmentation, encoding, and access control implementations are working as intended and provide ongoing compliance evidence instead of only providing periodic compliance snapshots.
Which are the factors influencing continuous network testing to reduce incidents & reduced downtime?
Organizations that implement continuous network testing have lower production incident rates for two major reasons:
- Many failures will be proactively eliminated because of preventing risky changes from going into production.
- When there is a problem, the teams have immediate visibility, and they know exactly what changed, where it changed, and which tests failed.
- This will reduce the time to investigate and will reduce the mean time to resolve the issue.
By using data rather than guessing, the teams will take appropriate action based on the data.
Let’s see the common challenges and how organizations overcome them.
Many companies are concerned with the potential risks associated with automation due to experience with outages, complexity with the tools, and barriers that arise when teams are already working together as separate entities.
Organizations that achieve success are often ones that start with baby steps. Initially, they will test automation tools in a read-only mode, allowing users to gain trust. As teams celebrate small wins, this creates confidence in the tool’s success as per Netpicker.
What are the measurable benefits it provides to IT leaders in business?
For executive-level management required to direct performance improvement initiatives, continuous network testing (CNT) provides concrete results.
A well-developed continuous integration/continuous deployment CI/CD network pipeline supports a network lifecycle process.
With proper CI/CD practices, networks can:
- Maintain version control over all changes made to the network;
- Use automated testing to validate whether the intent of the change made to the network matches the actual results observed;
- Prevent deployment of potentially harmful code if a specific condition fails during automated testing; and
- Quickly approve the production deployment of test-approved network changes.
- The network becomes a stronghold of innovation and is no longer viewed as a risk and uncertainty.
To conclude, the current state of CI/CD in networks is characterized by continuous network testing, which focuses on reducing risk, increasing visibility, and accelerating changes to networks. CNT is no longer optional for modern enterprises, it is a foundational capability necessary for ensuring reliability in delivering digital operations. To know more about network testing, contact us at Netpicker!