Companies use the shift-left testing approach with a strong focus on continuous testing to improve application quality and reduce the likelihood of errors after implementation.

There is always a need to set up a test environment that is similar to the production environment to ensure better quality. Preparing such test environments requires extensive planning, proper execution, and management. Managing Test environments (Test Environment Management for short TEM) pursues the goal to provide a stable and usable environment, consisting of the associated hardware, software, databases, and network componentsto run test scenarios and identify errors.

What is test environment management?

Before we go in depth, we should understand what TEM is. Test environment management involves controlling, managing, and managing enterprise-level test environments. It uses processes, tools, and resources to manage multiple pieces of configuration, such as software, hardware, databases, test data, and applications.

WHAT IS TEM?

“Test Environment Management (TEM) is an important process that simplifies the software development process. It ensures that everyone involved in product development has access to functional test environments to run test scenarios or reproduce errors.”

As a result of market competition, software products are becoming increasingly complex. As a result, managing test environments is becoming the biggest challenge.

You've probably had to deal with test environments in which many hidden problems arise before launching a product on the market. The most common TEM issues include:

• The complex task to provide multiple integrated test environments
• Infrastructure and platform deployment in a repeatable way
• Reliable monitoring of all environments (and not just for production!)
• Synchronized Software version updates
• deleting unused environments, to save our planet (and avoid high cloud bills)
• Test data management across the entire surrounding landscape
• troubleshoot in the test environment and solve problems quickly

Let's discuss 6 best practices that should help you avoid such issues.

6 TEM best practices

The challenges of managing test environments have led companies to worry about reduced test coverage and rising operating costs. Fortunately, some best practices for test environments can ease these challenges and deliver positive results faster.

1. Create trust through complete transparency of test environments

Everyone should always know what can be tested and where. That is why you need a central source of information about its environments and applications.

Ideally, should Anyone in the organization can access this information. If your company already has a project management platform such as Jira , which is used across the organization, this could be the perfect place to manage the test environment instead of introducing a new tool.

2. Reliable allocation of environments for different teams

Knowing the current status of the test environment is one thing. Knowing what's going to happen in the future is another. That is why you should use your Release, deployment, and outage plans also share with everyone involved.

Allocating environments for optimal use of resources avoids configuration conflicts. Instead of a shared calendar or an Excel spreadsheet, you can Use Jira to keep track of your environment allocation.

3. By intelligently integrating the TEM tool, manual updates can be avoided

Let's be honest: If information is updated manually, it is likely that it is not up to date. The one responsible for updating the version after an implementation is on vacation? Or maybe the information is incorrect due to an incorrect copy process?

Yours TEM tool must be in your toolchain (distribution tool, monitoring tool, CMDB, etc.) can be integrated to ensure that your environmental inventory is always up to date. In this way, you create trust with your stakeholders.

4. Deploy your environments in a repeatable way through virtualization

Enables the simultaneous deployment and execution of test environment instancesto avoid scheduling conflicts, speed up test cycles, and simplify reporting.

Virtualization is wonderful — with Docker and Kuberenetes, you can create snapshots and easily reproduce your entire end-to-end environment. However, as this is an important investment, you should conduct an ROI analysis first. Does it make sense to invest $100,000 if you ship a new version twice a year? Probably not.

5. Improve knowledge management & have an overview of tasks and incidents

Centralized test environment management ensures that all necessary information is available to stakeholders and end users: Test environment schedules, release plans, recovery procedures, documentation, incidents, and status reports.

Because test environments are shared (and often scarce) resources, there are usage conflicts when one or more projects compete for the same environment at the same time. In this case, measures must be taken.

Tools such as Jira (for tasks and incidents) and Confluence (for documentation) can help you manage the list of all devices and associated information, processes, methods, and application stacks. With these tools, you can also use all Track tasks and problem solutionsthat you and your team have carried out.

6. Review TEM performance regularly with appropriate KPIs

Regular reviews help to keep test environments as realistic and precise as possible. After each important test cycle, evaluate what is working and what is not, which resources are being used too little or too much, etc., and make the necessary changes according to the test team's requirements and bookings.

For these checks We recommend tracking important metrics and KPIs such as the operating time of the environment, the percentage availability of the environment, the number of unplanned service interruptions, and so on

In summary, managing test environments is a complex process that requires thorough planning and coordination. Effective automation and standardized methods can simplify this process and make it more efficient.

TEM is the right solution to automate the CI/CD process, provide frequent releasesto shorten time to market, eliminate sources of error and facilitate communication between different teams.

Optimize your test environments with Swarmit and Golive

Unfortunately, there is no universal tool or strategy for all R&D teams. With our TEM best practices and a well-integrated Jira app like Golive companies can optimize their resources and ensure that test environments run linearly by keeping an eye on demand and usage.

If you have any questions about Test Environment Management or are interested in the Golive app, we at Swarmit and Apwide will be happy to help you.

As an official partner of Apwide, we can help you implement the best practices for TEM and integrate the Golive app into your work processes. This allows you to ensure that your test environments run efficiently and smoothly and that your resources are used optimally.

Whether you're a small start-up or a large company, our expertise and experience in this area can help you get the most out of your test environments and improve the quality of your software development.

So don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or are interested. We're looking forward to being able to help you.

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This blog was originally written by Apwide created.