How to Add Continuous Release Testing to Continuous Integration

Delivering high-quality software necessitates thorough compatibility testing within continuous integration (CI) processes to ensure releases are compatible with diverse customer environments, which include various operating systems, hardware configurations, and software dependencies. This approach minimizes post-release issues, builds user trust, and reduces support burdens by identifying potential issues such as crashes or feature inconsistencies early in the development cycle. By incorporating methods like compatibility testing, canary testing, smoke tests, and load handling into the CI pipeline, developers can automatically validate code changes and ensure software reliability. Replicated offers a Compatibility Matrix that integrates with CI processes, enabling automated testing of customer-representative environments, which can be seamlessly incorporated using tools like the Replicated CLI. This facilitates the creation of test clusters for various Kubernetes environments, thereby enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of release testing across multiple CI tools.