The goal of Continuous Testing is to shift testing left to find defects earlier and release software faster. This can be achieved by integrating a set of open source functional and performance testing tools in the early stages of your software delivery lifecycle. There is one process that binds all application delivery stages together into one well-orchestrated machine: Continuous Testing. Continuous Testing is the conveyer belt between the Software Factory and production stages. Artifacts are moved from one stage to the next only after they have been tested and approved to continue. New code submitted to the repository is tested upon commit. When tests fail, the code is rejected. Subsystems are approved as part of periodic builds on their way to the delivery stage, where the system is being tested as production ready. The release process stops when tests fail. The key is to shift test creation and execution to the left, rather than creating tests after development is complete. As code is committed and promoted, all tests run in the background near instantaneously, as there is no longer time for human intervention in a continuous deployment cycle.