Speeding Up Data Delivery to Create Test Environments Faster

The world lives at the edge of our fingertips - accessible, fast-paced, and simple - except for data. Despite the important role data plays in DevOps, it remains a time-consuming, tedious, bottleneck. Since the adoption of shift-left, the pace of test data management has become even more crucial. With consumers now expecting quick turnaround times, software companies have to find new ways to speed up their data testing and thus their time to market.

The Challenge

When it comes to non-production data, companies generally operate off a queue-based system. A predetermined number of people are responsible for various steps throughout the process of creating a test environment and fulfill requests as they come in. An administrator may be required to approve the creation of a new test environment, but if she already has other requests lined up, she will complete those before addressing the request from the development team.

Depending on the number of people involved - and the number of requests they each have to deal with, this process can take weeks and leave development teams using stale data or waiting unproductively. Not only is this costly and time consuming, but it can negatively affect the entire process of the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

The Solutions 

•     Virtualization: Virtual database copies allow development teams to access and manipulate data without having to access the production database. Development teams receive a copy version of the data that can be altered and changed, without making any modifications to the source. This eliminates a number of slow and manual processes, such as data delivery and data refresh, which were keeping development teams waiting.
•     Automation: By using a modern TDM platform to automate test data delivery as part of the DevOps processes, companies can cut out time-consuming manual steps. The TDM platform will automatically deliver high-quality, privacy-safe test data as part of a CI/CD pipeline. This leaves development teams free to focus on software development and innovation instead of waiting for test data.
•     Independence: It’s time to cut out the middleman. Instead of forcing development teams to wait for database administrators, companies should provide them the tools to access test data on their own. Let developers share, alter, bookmark, and archive their own test data, just like any other software asset.

How Accelario Can Help

Test data is one of the last real bottlenecks in DevOps. It slows down development teams and requires far too much people power. By using Accelario, software companies can create better test data environments with less effort and in a shorter amount of time. Accelario believes in the power of innovation and helps companies reach their potential much faster.