Workshop: Virtualization and Containers for Automating Web Testing

STPCon Spring Workshop

Vagrant and Docker are automation tools that are becoming increasingly popular in the DevOps world. Vagrant provides a simple, consistent interface to create virtual machines on your local system and in the cloud. Docker lets you control containers—like virtual machines but smaller and faster with less overhead. These tools can provide on-demand, disposable test environments that are delivered quickly, in a known state, locally or in the cloud. Systems under test, test tools, infrastructure, and even pre-populated test data are all candidates for virtualization and containers. When required, the tools can tear down the environment and recreate it within minutes or even faster. And since the process is automated, anyone on the team can use the same commands to get his own virtual environment for testing.

I’ll demonstrate how to get started with Vagrant and Docker, how to build virtual machines and containers with your own software for testing, and how to use Vagrant and Docker for your test tools as well as the systems under test. Learn how to install the tools and use them in testing scenarios. See how this enables testers and developers to spend less time deploying, configuring, and troubleshooting software—leaving more time to test.