Well managed Test Environments lead to smoother Test Cycles
Technology » Test Environments
Test Environments
The management of Test Environments is an important part of overall IT Quality Assurance and Testing governance and has a significant influence on test effectiveness and efficiency:-
Test Environment Management is the management of the various components, infrastructure, interfaces, tools, data, test applications and releases, in the environment(s) designated for testing. The effective management of these environments has a significant impact on cost, timeliness and delivered quality.
The degree to which the Test environment(s) are a good proxy for production, the timeliness of their availability and their reliability are at least as important as SQA process and tooling.
The degree to which test professionals work within an integrated environment which fully supports the SQA and Testing Operating model has a significant on overall productivity and delivered quality. This cover test applications and data, tool support and the artefacts used by testers e.g. specifications, test case suites, defect reports etc.
The Metisure© framework contains a set of best practices in Test Environment management covering:-
Security
- Reflecting target production environment
- Supporting allocation of Test environments
- Segregation of access to preserve Test Team independence and integrity
- Integrity of test data and test runs
Tooling
- Deployment of selected Test tools – see previous section
- Creation/Allocation/Partitioning of test environments
- Maintaining availability and stability
- Reflecting target production environment e.g. scheduler. This is especially relevant for Performance/Stress Testing
Data
- Base of historical data
- Creation of new data
- Masking sensitive data
- Conditioning data for specific tests
Configuration Management
- Source code/module version control
- Building releases to deploy to environments
- Migration of releases to environments
Release Management
- Handover schedule for new release/”fix” releases
- Handover documentation/release notes
- Manage releases through environments into Production