Test orchestration is a critical component of effective automation in software development, streamlining the testing process by synchronizing multiple automated tests. It optimizes workflows, reduces human error, and accelerates testing and deployment cycles, integral for agile methodologies. Adopting a well-defined orchestration strategy equips organizations to enhance testing efficiency, improve software quality, and adapt to evolving development needs.

1. Test Orchestration and Its Need for
Successful Automation
We all know, the biggest challenge for any organization is the changing needs of the
customers and finding a way to address these quickly without any compromise on
quality. Agile Software Development methodology followed by most organizations
plays a crucial role in handling this competitive situation. The Agile approach
demands integrating the product component, deploying the product in a pre-
production environment, and test it quite frequently. A streamlined test
orchestration process would help accomplish this. Test automation orchestration
helps developers enhance the testing processes by eliminating the probabilities of
human errors in the process.
Test Orchestration defined
Let us get to the roots to understand the word orchestration. An orchestra is a
collection of musical instruments playing in synchronization led by a conductor to
create a harmonious melody. Here, we can relate orchestration as the set of tests
working in sync to create a harmonized software testing. In simple terms,
orchestration is all about automating many tasks together i.e., automating the entire
IT-driven process altogether. Test Orchestration Framework is designed to create
several automated tests scheduled to run one after the other. It is the most critical
element of the automation testing strategy. With no doubt that test automation is the

2. future of software testing, we understand that the testers might incur losses if they do
not understand automation correctly and underuse it. So, it becomes impertinent to
analyze the big picture i.e., making efficient the automation testing with the
assistance of test orchestration. Thus, test orchestration becomes a powerful
strategy for continuous, holistic test automation of software products.
Test Orchestration and its need in Automation
The meaning of the terms orchestration and automation often overlaps. Test
orchestration is considered a set of automated tests scheduled to execute linearly.
Test Automation refers to precise tasks automated with the help of testing tools and
scripts. While automation deals with a single task, test Orchestration optimizes the
entire workflow by automating the scheduled tests in a predefined order. A single set
of tasks can cover aspects like launching a website to integrating an application, etc.
Automated testing is performed at the script level and is within the scope of the
development team. Testers and DevOps people create the tests and testing
environment, and then various testing tools are used to automate and execute those
tests. Orchestration is more of a developer’s thing and is considered a plan than a
tool. So we can say that automation is more about executing the tests, whereas
orchestration is more about a technique of execution of those tests. Therefore,
orchestration is a much broader concept. It controls the type of tests to be executed,
when they need to be executed, their sequence of execution, and if any human
intervention is required
Below is the link to a Webinar that helps us get more in-depth knowledge
about the role of Rapid Automation in Continuous Testing, which is another
important aspect of test orchestration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgluYz0x5Ck

3. Automation was present even before DevOps became popular. Businesses have
now transformed their DevOps, and with it, automation has become an inescapable
part, critical to a successful deployment of software. Together, both aspects are
considered a robust and effective combination generating optimum results. If
Orchestration sounds more voguish than automation, it is because it’s more
technically challenging. It demands higher aptitude to understand the steps involved.
Also, require tracking of each step across a variety of environments and platforms.
Understanding the benefits of Test Orchestration
Test Orchestration can be hard in comparison to automation. It offers a whole new
approach to testing and looks at the entire testing process broadly to streamline and
optimize testing in the best way. Hence, test orchestration can be very beneficial.
Firstly, it will entirely remove the need for human intervention within the testing
process, eradicating any chance of human errors. With the help of the right tools like
Selenium Orchestrator, one can generate detailed reports about every automated
task. It allows Quality Analysts, project leaders, programmers, and other related
teams to get an insight into the visibility, updated information, and current state of an
application. Information like which tests failed or were successful is critical to the QA
team to analyze the problematic areas.
Just automating alone makes an impression on the users that something has
improved in terms of speed that might not be a highlight of the service, but once
processes and workflows orchestrate, it brings a whole new range of benefits. It
saves overall IT costs, increases productivity by shifting focus on subjects requiring
in-depth human thought; it standardizes products and workflows making them
reliable and consistent.
Test Automation generates a lot of data that explains the latest state of the
application. It can be viewed in the form of charts, diagrams for the pursual of

4. various stakeholders in the organization. It also allows quick visual identification of
the issues and the regressive quality of the application.
Why do we need a test orchestration strategy in automation?
There is no getting around the fact that orchestration is a complex subject. All
DevOps professionals are not well versed in the technicalities to perform test
orchestration rightly. The team needs to be well-versed with the intricacies of this
field. It becomes necessary to upgrade the relevant skill-set that sometimes the
organization even sets up a whole new set of specialized and well-equipped
professionals if needed. Defining who will perform which role in the orchestration and
automation process can overcome many problems affecting the quality and timely
delivery of service. You must be thinking that adding this to the system will disturb
the team’s existing course of action, then why take this up? Well, it is because
adding this to the mix has more ‘long-term’ benefits than challenges. With a sound
strategy in place, the move from automated testing to orchestrate automated testing
becomes effortless. Additionally, it becomes much easier to perform all of the above
by adding well-supported orchestration tools to improvise the process. The following
points must be noted while choosing the tools that fit.
-Firstly, infrastructure or software development workflows would require different
tools for their respective jobs.
-Secondly, you’ll need to check if it is industry compliant? Whether it can handle the
scale up or scale down in different variations of demand? Whether it supports data
and analytics? Whether the task is simple/cumbersome?
-Thirdly, your organization and IT deployment size and operating system
compatibility factors should be considered.

5. Some of the best automation/orchestration tools are:
–Ansible: It supports Continuous delivery in applications. It is open-source and
supports infrastructure orchestration tool, automates repetitive tasks of IT.
–Control-M: Its use mostly pertains to the work of business service thus it
orchestrates their business applications and data sources. It generally focuses on
the day to day activities of the business.
–Jenkins: It mainly focuses on software delivery technologies. In other words, it
supports continuous delivery and integration. Built on Java Virtual Machine, it has
1500+ plugins to automate the software.
– Kubernetes: It orchestrates storage infrastructure workloads, computing, and
networking. It is a container platform used to orchestrate apps that are built and
shipped in containers.
Few other scheduling and orchestration tools that cannot be skipped are Nomad,
Rancher, Marathon, Mesosphere, Selenium Orchestrator, etc.
Test Orchestration and CI/ CD Pipeline
Test orchestration is a valuable concept when it comes to Continuous Development
and DevOps. It enables true continuous testing by allowing early-stage testing and
error detection and resolving issues before it starts impacting the development cycle.
A well planned automated test orchestration process would help the testers to test
the application end-to-end and repeatedly. Since these two aspects of reliability and
repeatability are the core benefits of automation, it signifies that the organizations
can test and work on the errors quickly before any vulnerable situation sets in. As
more and more processes are being orchestrated, engineers concentrate on
developing other important tasks reaching a lot more of the assigned targets.

6. The ultimate goal of automated test orchestration is to overcome the challenges of
the CI/CD pipeline. It would do it by maximizing efficiency, optimizing test
management processes, and expediting the app deployments. A smart test
automation orchestration strategy would equip the organization is speeding up the
complete Software Development Life Cycle, results in reliable tests with no chance
of human errors, shorter release cycles, and better quality software.
What can we learn from this?
By now, the goal of ‘orchestration’ seems quite clear that is to increase efficiency in
the testing automation process. Its adoption will result in maintaining shorter release
cycles and better software quality, In other words, strengthening the complete test
automation strategy. Test Automation Orchestration is the real future of quality
assurance.
As the organizations continue to grow, the need for adopting test orchestration
becomes a priority. No matter how complex their software development life cycle and
set of tools they use to manage infrastructure and deploy applications may be,
orchestration is a one-stop solution to deal with every complexity. For better results,
the early adoption of orchestration would ease planning and securing the future. It
must be followed along with the time to achieve the automation milestone. For more
information on test orchestration and a range of automation testing solutions, contact
us.