Test Environment Management (TEM) is a function in the software delivery process which aids the software testing cycle by providing a validated, stable and usable test environment to execute the test scenarios or replicate bugs.
Contents
How its need arose
In the testing phase, the team structure of the test team varies as per the stage of a current project. Many times the testers working on the project in a team keep changing and the knowledge of the environments used for a particular test cycle is lost. Moreover, the test environments are continuously evolving and it becomes eminent for someone to own the test environment configuration and its usage details. This is where establishing a test environment management (TEM) would prove to be a boon.
List of activities
The activities under the TEM function include –
Tools used
- Configuration Management Database software : This tool would be required to maintain a repository of the environment components and its versions. The data in this tool would also be helpful in incident management and problem management.
- Booking tool : This tool would be required to capture the allocation of test environments and to check for the availability of the environments. Usage analysis can also be captured in it.
- Problem / Incident management tools : This tool would be used to capture the problem / incident data and to manage the life-cycle of the incident / problem. Reports generated based on this data would give good insights into the health of the test environments.
Many teams use spreadsheets instead of using specific tools for the first two areas if the data is less. However, if the data is more, it is recommended to use specialized tools for it.