The role played by test environment is under estimated. Why do we need test environments? How
must it be set up? Can we scale…
The development of software product(s) in solving day to day problems and/ or taking advantage of
identified opportunities; have over the years and through the life cycle of the software product
posed challenges in effectively verifying the software product. This is mainly due to, inter-alia:
Test Environments.
The product development teams have automated almost everything, yet Return on Investment (ROI)
cannot be easily determined. Challenges faced are the following, inter-alia:
Tests cannot be run as many times as required, with consistent results.
Tests cannot be run as fast as expected and results published timely.
More test scenarios, are excluded from automated test runs.
The presentation will share both the challenges experienced and observed throughout my testing
career, as a result of incorrectly setup test environments.
Also, how the test environments setup impact the type of tests to be executed, highlight types of
risks carried and how to address the test environments pain points.
How do we set up environments and tests effectively? (Determining correct scope, size and purpose
of test environment).
How do we scale test environments? (Employment of containers and infrastructure as code).
How do we scale tests? (Writing scalable and maintainable tests).
What about test data? (Creating and Managing data for effective testing).