Do You Even TDM, (Test Data Management)?
Along with the deep learning I’ve been allowed to do about data virtualization, I’ve learned a great deal about Test Data Management. Since doing so, I’ve started to do some informal surveys of the DBAs I run into and ask them, “How do you get data to your testers so that they can perform tests?” “How do you deliver code to different environments?”
As a basic skill for a database administrator, we’re taught how to use export and import tools, along with cloning options to deliver data where its needed for various development and in succession, testing activities. If DBAs didn’t deliver on time, due to resource constraints or inability, then developers would often find their own ways to manually create the data they would need to test new code. integration testing teams would need to manufacture data to validate complicated end-to-end functional testing scenarios, and performance & scalability testing teams would need to manufacture data that could stress their solutions at scale. Rarely were their means successful and the deployment, along with the company often felt the pain.
Failure and Data
As the volume of application projects increased, larger IT organizations recognized the opportunity to gain efficiencies of scale and searched out opportunities to streamline processes and gain ways of speeding up data refreshes, even synthesizing data! However, Developers and Testers still had little ability to self-service their needs and often found synthesized data incapable of meeting requirements and floundering deployments once to production. IT organizations were able to achieve some efficiencies and cost savings, but significant savings related to development, along with testing productivity and quality remained a mystery.
DevOps To the Rescue
With the adoption of DevOps, a heightened focus on automation and speed of delivery occurred across IT. Advanced Test Data Management solutions are starting to become a reality. Companies are starting to realize that importance of data distribution, self-service and data security when delivered to non-production environments.
I truly believe that no IT organization can accuse development or testing departments of lacking delivery if the groups aren’t offered the environments needed and data quality required to deliver a quality product. One of the ways this can be accomplished is via virtualized database and application environments. Simply virtualize the test and development, eliminating up to 90% of the storage required for physical databases and yet, still offer all the same data that is available in production. If data security is a concern, this can all be done with data masking, built right into a proper Test Data Management product.
Test Drive TDM
If you’re interested in taking a proper Test Data Management product for a test drive, right on your laptop, try out Delphix Express.
Great post. Your readers might also find real user reviews for all the major test data management tools on IT Central Station to be helpful: https://www.itcentralstation.com/categories/test-data-management/tzd/c256-sbc-15.
As an example, this user writes in his review of CA Test Data Manager that with this tool, “we have moved data creation from manual or limited and costly automated processes to a set of weekly data builds and an On-Demand offering capable of delivering versatile data that meets the needs of our many teams.” You can read the rest of his review here: https://www.itcentralstation.com/product_reviews/ca-test-data-manager-review-40551-by-adam-topper/tzd/c256-sbc-15.