In this presentation, David Tabernero will guide you through his journey to bring light into the darkness of Avaloq Testing. Upon his arrival at Basler Kantonalbank, the first major challenge emerged: redefining the entire test automation strategy.
As of September 2023, test automation was based on a legacy tool, which presented several key challenges:
1. Tests could not be executed in a fully automated manner – after each test execution, someone had to manually trigger the next one. Even though parallelization was theoretically possible, licensing limitations prevented more than five tests from running simultaneously.
2. Lack of automated reporting – all reports had to be manually documented in Confluence.
3. Limited visibility – it was unclear what the tests were actually verifying, as only the execution process was visible.
4. High licensing costs – fees increased year after year.
5. Scalability issues – adding more tests was not feasible due to the excessive time required for execution.
In November 2023, a financial analysis was conducted. By December 2023, budget constraints required the discontinuation of all external consultants, marking a critical turning point. The existing solution was not functioning as expected, and no one was available to ensure its proper operation.
The decision was made: to replace the outdated solution with a new, open-source-based test automation platform using Java, Selenium, WinAppDriver, and Cucumber.
In this presentation, David will walk you through the key steps of this migration, the milestones achieved, and the technical challenges the team encountered along the way.
Today, we are benefiting from a modernized test automation architecture, which provides the following advantages:
a) All tests are now fully automated and run in parallel across five virtual machines. This is just the beginning – parallelization can be expanded as needed, allowing for a complete test run in just a few hours.
b) Automated reporting is now directly integrated into Jira.
c) Enhanced transparency – test coverage is clearer, and even customers have shown interest in extending the tests themselves.
d) Open-source technology eliminates recurring licensing costs.
e) Continuous expansion of test coverage – new tests are being added regularly, making automation more robust over time.
With this new approach, test automation has become more efficient, scalable, and cost-effective, laying the foundation for future growth and continuous improvement.
