Many factors might jeopardize the software product quality and release but, in most of the cases, inefficient and flawed IT test environment management is the main reason for late release and errors. A proper, comprehensive and highly efficient IT test environment planning is the need of the hour for enterprises and businesses. With a thorough test environment planning, you can ensure superior and efficient use of technology assets and other resources. In addition to that, it also helps in enhancing quality while reducing operational costs. It is the high time businesses start investing their time and efforts to manage test environments to assure success in quality operations and better product releases.
What does test environment planning include?
First of all, you need to manage various components efficiently such as hardware, software, middleware applications, databases, resources, operational procedures and processes, test data, and other tools. Some of the challenges that quality analysts face are:
- Not having a team of committed professionals for IT test environment management
- A scrappy environment with different activities scattered across the team of developers, testers, and administrators
- No mechanisms of asset tracking and lack of asset consolidation of the test environment
- Decentralized software releases due to separate ownerships of projects
- Environmental configuration issues
- No use of tools which bring errors in the system
- Lack of documentation that does not allow reusability.
How to plan for IT test environment management?
There are many things you need to consider before you start making a comprehensive IT test environment management plan. If you don’t have any human resources who have prior experience in managing IT test environments, you can hire professional help. These consultants will leverage their expertise and experience to offer the best IT test environment management plan for your business after evaluating your business needs and product nature.
Strategic Planning and Robust Program Governance
If you want smooth functioning of multiple test environments, you need to ensure that you have a strategic approach to it. Some of the key inputs you can use are:
Capacity Enhancement
First and foremost, you need to ensure that your test environment strategy is in line with other strategies such as IT infrastructure strategy and enterprise testing strategy. It will help you to build an end-to-end test environment.
Test Environment Life Cycle
You should keep a scope of the test environment while designing and building an environment with a balanced approach. Also, try to keep the infrastructure and operational costs minimum.
Continuous Improvement
You also need to review your plan from time to time to utilize resources and assets optimally and to ensure an efficient and sustainable test environment.
Better Utilization of Resources
You need to bring all the resources on one page to get the maximum output from them. Knowledge and information sharing for reusability and smooth communication can play a huge role here.
Process Optimization and Standardization
You need to keep optimizing your processes by using the best practices and by measuring performance through different metrics.
Efficient Test Environment Management and nDash
Manage test environment efficiently by managing data processes and procedures, identifying tools for various analyses, generating and validating data, data mining, covering and sharing information, and archiving reusable data.
Conclusion:
There is no way to achieve the best product releases and efficient test operations if you don’t make and implement an effective IT test environment management. Design a plan and stick to it throughout the development and release process to release an error-free and the best product in the market.
