First of all, let’s understand what exactly is test environment management. In case you have utilised a software system that saves anything, there is a huge possibility that you have come across test environments that are typically hidden. There are times when people say words like “please do not deploy to staging, certain clients are load testing on it” or “is it possible to refresh the user data such that our consumer can regression test on it?”
These communications and the way we respond to it all come under this type of environment management. Such communications are always concerned with scheduling data refreshes, new testing environments, tackling dependencies and dealing with the conflicts of interest between consumers.
Different types of software have to undergo various kinds of development stages that come in the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) methodology. The exclusive stages include requirement analysis, software module design, execution or development of the software module, software modules testing and continuous evolution of the software modules. All these things come in the purview of IT test environment management.
Testing is an integral part of the SDLC stage and can determine the ultimate fate of the software quality that will be released in live environments. It is therefore essential to make sure that the test environment being employed for the software are reliable and as close to the production as possible.
So, what makes the test environment management process essential? In today’s IT field, the requirements keep frequently changing as and when the technology evolves. Hence there is a complicated connection between cost, quality and time. In an ideal environment, if we have adequate time and budget, software teams should be able to execute a high-quality product. However, in the real world scenario, you will rarely find projects with the right time and budget. More often than not, the projects run over budget with time constraints. Due to this, the quality cannot be maintained.
In most of the cases, the reason for the bad quality product is the fact that the test environment management is not given the priority it deserves, or the environmental management process is not managed in an efficient manner.
Let’s now look at the different ways to carry of IT test environment management effectively.
Certain problems that we face during the testing process can be overcome with test environment management tools like Plutora that effortlessly puts such practices in place. First of all, there is a need to find out a certain level of metrics that can scrutinise the trouble spots. When those are in place, it is possible to follow these practices.
Package & Publish Environments, not Simply Your Codes
To minimise the costs of poorly managed infrastructure, it is possible to package your test environments, including lookup data. From that point forward, you can distribute these to various customers. For instance, a web-based business organisation named XYZ possibly adding another site page to sell bicycles on the web. When the improvement group at XYZ composes the code for the new page, the code is bundled and discharged into the test situations. Numerous test groups may need to test this component(s), across various situations, before it is affirmed for arrangement underway, for utilisation by end-clients or clients.
To guarantee that the item is tried effectively, test groups need to have the testing foundation/situations and other testing parts pre-designed well ahead of time of the code discharge to test groups.
Line up With Production
Further, these pre-arranged resources should adjust accurately with the creation/live situations, with negligible contortions and varieties. Numerous organizations come up short on this procedure of productively dealing with the test situations, bringing about creation bugs or disappointments, missed SLA’s and low quality of finished results.
It is tricky if your product charges your clients twice in exchange because of a bug in the Mastercard processor. Furthermore, there is no reason if it was because you didn’t arrange the test condition to resemble creation during testing.
Track and Schedule Environment Usage
If you have test situations shared by various customers, you need an approach to shield them from catching one another. It is acceptable, at that point, to have a unified spot to book and calendar trials. You can utilise this planning to guarantee test information is revived in time. It can assist you with guaranteeing nature is consequently in its arranged state by the deadline.
Make Everything Self-Service
Executives use spending plans to give groups compelled self-rule. Inside the limits of their financial limit, a group captain can buy assets they have to take care of business. Similarly, we can make our distributed condition and planning self-administration. This gets us far from being a bottleneck, enabling groups to make the correct appointments and setups for their necessities. All things considered, they have the most information about what they have to carry out their responsibility.
Careful Discipline Brings About Promising Results
Despite the fact that we have generally consigned test conditions as second class citizens, we have the devices to improve. With such tools, we can bring better practices and stay away from the issues of misconfigured, physically oversaw test situations. We can go into a time where we treat test conditions as code by controlling their designs, adjusting them to creation, and distributing to the customers that need them. We can likewise grasp brought together booking to guarantee our customers have the assets they have to test without a chain of hard-to-follow messages. With such practices, we will see untold cost reserve funds and gains.
