Top Reasons Why Every DevOps Team Needs a Modern TDM Platform
[An update to the eBook: Accelario | 3 Reasons Why DevOps need a TDM]
DevOps teams rely on rapid release velocity and quality in order to deliver incremental value. However, traditional methods for providing test data can be complex, time-consuming, and require a high-touch process, making it a bottleneck for these teams.
This is especially important for data-centric applications, where access to production-like datasets is crucial throughout the development, testing, and release processes. Without a solution, DevOps teams can lose release velocity due to long wait times for data or sacrifice product and data quality due to limited and stale data environments..
To address these challenges, a modern Test Data Management (TDM) platform is necessary for DevOps teams. These platforms offer datasets at the speed of DevOps, allowing for faster delivery and greater flexibility in refreshing test data. They also provide self-service delivery, reducing the dependency on central teams, and offer test data masking for data privacy compliance. In addition, modern TDM platforms can easily integrate into CI/CD pipelines and offer a lower storage footprint and cost, helping to reduce storage expenses.
Here are six main reasons why every DevOps team needs a modern TDM platform:
1. Datasets at the speed of DevOps: Traditional methods for providing test data can take hours, days, or even weeks, making it difficult for DevOps teams to meet their rapid release goals. Modern TDM platforms offer a practical way to copy the entire production database, allowing for faster delivery and greater flexibility in refreshing test datasets.
2. Self-service delivery: Traditional TDM practices require a high-touch, DBA-dependent process, making it difficult for DevOps teams to access the data they need in a timely manner. Modern TDM platforms provide self-service delivery, reducing the dependency on central teams and allowing teams to access the datasets they need more efficiently.
3. Integration into CI/CD pipelines: In order to support the rapid release velocity of DevOps teams, test data needs automated delivery using APIs that integrate easily into CI/CD pipelines. Modern TDM platforms offer this capability, allowing for seamless integration into existing processes.
4. Data privacy: Traditional TDM practices often involve the manual identification and anonymization of sensitive data fields, which can be time-consuming and error-prone. Modern TDM platforms offer automated sensitive data search and test data masking, helping ensure that sensitive data is protected while still maintaining referential integrity of the dataset.
5. Lower storage costs: Traditional TDM practices leverage physical data copies, which can lead to an increased storage footprint, resulting in higher storage costs. Modern TDM platforms leverage virtual database copies that offer a lower storage footprint and cost, helping to reduce storage expenses.
6. Manage test data like code: Unleash unprecedented efficiency with advanced database virtualization, enabling customers to handle test data like code. Tap into versioning, cloning, branching, sharing, and rewinding test data to an earlier point in time.
Overall, modern TDM platforms offer a more efficient and effective approach to managing test data, supporting the needs of DevOps teams and helping increase delivery velocity while also ensuring data privacy and reducing storage costs.