Improve E2E Test Runtime Performance

[frewilhelm]

Description

The current e2e test suite takes a considerable amount of time to execute. We should optimize the test runtime by:

• Parallelizing Ginkgo tests:

  • Enable parallel execution using --procs flag
  • Ensure test isolation with unique namespaces (currently e2e-replication-controller-test is hardcoded)
  • Mark tests that can run in parallel vs. serially
  • Make shared resources like controllerPodName thread-safe

• Improving test setup:

  • Optimize BeforeSuite operations (controller pod lookup, validation frequency)
  • Implement smarter polling intervals with exponential backoff instead of fixed waits
  • Review timeout values in utils.DeployAndWaitForResource (currently 10m default)
  • Add fast-failing resource readiness checks

• Optimizing Kind cluster initialization:

  • Profile cluster creation time to identify bottlenecks
  • Investigate pre-built cluster images
  • Evaluate cluster reuse between test runs
  • Optimize cluster configuration to include only necessary components

• Improving example tests:

  • The tests in e2e_examples_test.go run sequentially through all examples - investigate parallelization
  • Cache expensive operations like utils.PrepareOCMComponent (component version creation/transfer)
  • Reduce setup/teardown overhead by grouping similar examples

Done Criteria

• Test suite runtime reduced to a maximum of five minutes (setup + runtime)
• Tests can run in parallel without conflicts or flaky behavior
• Documentation updated with parallel execution instructions
• CI/CD pipeline updated to use parallel execution
• Code has been reviewed by other team members
• Internal technical Documentation created/updated (if applicable)
• Successful demonstration in Review