3 Best Practices to Follow While Performing IT Test Environment Management
An IT test environment is a setup that assists the testing team to perform test cases efficiently. This IT environment management includes software, hardware, and network configuration. The set of this test environment is dependent on the application under test. When the complete setup is done, it assists testers to perform their tasks without any hassles from the system. The system assists in enhancing the overall quality of the final product.
Let’s now look at what makes IT Test environment management imperative. With the advancement in technology, the requirements keep changing. For example, Angular has been dominating the UI domain recently, and so the demand for single-page applications has increased. Every business has to ensure cost, time, and quality. It also aims at completing the project within a stipulated budget and time frame.
However, these two entities often face a shortage. An ideal world scenario does not work here. There are times when, due to time and budget constraints, the quality of the end product declines. But, budget and time constraint does not mean that you do not put in your everything during the testing period. Software testing is a tricky process that includes several dependencies.
Ultimately testing is a critical aspect of the software development cycle (SDLC), which can have a significant say on the product’s fate. This makes it essential to have the IT environment management tools to be reliable. You do not wish to disappoint your customers by delivering a product that consists of several bugs due to improper testing. Do you? Irrespective of whether you are a startup or an established company, never overlook the importance of testing. To get the most accurate results, it is vital to have proper test environment management.
In case your team does not give importance to test environment management, it results in poor handling of assets, including time and budget. Whenever a company is not able to handle these things in the right way, the ultimate result is poor quality. Hence, to maintain a high-quality of products and services offered, it becomes essential to manage the test environment.
Let’s now divert our attention to the best practices to follow while performing IT test environment management.
Start Testing at An Early Stage in the SDLC
Most of the companies today know the importance of testing early; however, not many can do it successfully. Remember, when a team does not check at an early stage, chances of bugs increase at a later stage. And fixing them requires time, money, and effort. This results in the disruption of the test environment. If the development team has created a few lines of codes, testing exercises should commence there at that stage itself. The team also needs to adopt the shift-left approach. This means they should test earlier in the product’s life cycle. This way, it results in fewer bugs to fix at the end of the day. Ultimately saving you time and cutting down costs.
Mask & Encrypt Test Data
Due to the enhancement of technology, the chances of cyber threats have increased. It has usually been found that endpoints are the starting point of the majority of data breaches. This is not only a threat to the users, but it also poses a significant threat to organizations as well. This makes it imperative for organizations to mask & encrypt test data. It is equally important for every organization to avoid using real customer data while testing. It is crucial to ensure data compliance with PII or GDPR standards. You also ensure data compliance using the following processes: service virtualization, data fabrication, and ETL automation.
Perform Iterative Tests
Most of the companies are going agile as a part of their framework. By using this framework, the organization tests in iterations. This means that the complete product is bifurcated into small phases. Every phase has its development cycle and testing cycle. Every process discloses bugs early on, which makes it easier to fix them. Ultimately, iterative tests provide the much-needed flexibility to the SDLC. It also allows the client to alter the scope whenever required, without putting an additional cost burden. And as the team handles bugs at every sprint, it does not put any extra load on them at the end of the project. This makes risk management more effortless.
These are some of the best practices to follow while performing IT test environment management.