Testing in production, or TIP, is a somewhat controversial software development practice. It's a big part of continuous delivery that many developers view as risky. If you need software testing in production, visit this website.

TIP involves testing new code changes on live users in real-time instead of using a staging environment. Despite the things that could go wrong, it's quickly become the go-to strategy. But why?

How TIP Works

This development practice is relatively simple. Feature flags are more common than before, allowing teams to put new changes in front of live production traffic with a simple button press. The process is relatively contained, making the changes available to only a small percentage of real users.

With TIP, the goal is to validate code and ensure it works in a real-world environment. It's a great way to highlight problems and catch bugs. Developers can see what goes wrong, and the production environment makes pinpointing issues a straightforward process.

It allows for quick and efficient A/B testing. You're comparing the new features and changes to the previous version of the software. You can quickly gather production data and see if it results in a better user experience.

How Does TIP Prevent Errors?

Testing in production is excellent for quick A/B testing in a production environment, but what if problems occur?

Because TIP applies to only a small percentage of issues, there's no worry about widespread problems or system-wide failure. With A/B testing strategies, you can narrow things down and pinpoint the exact issue. But even if you can't find the bug, feature flags act as a killswitch to roll back code to the previous version.

It's as easy and efficient as that.

Implementing TIP Practices

Ultimately, TIP is a great way to spot errors and fix bugs before they reach a broader audience. Staging environments have their perks. However, simulating actual user behavior is challenging.

The only way to see how changes impact your software is to see how it performs in the real world. In doing so, you can increase customer trust and improve overall satisfaction.

Read a similar article about AB testing here at this page.