What is Test Data Management? Definition, Tools, Best Practices

One of the most important parts of creating modern software is managing test data efficiently.  Managing and delivering test data is challenging as the demand for high-quality apps develops.

Test data is crucial to software development.  Developing applications that meet today’s customers’ demands and expectations requires accurate test data.  Test data helps make software safer, better designed, and faster. Test data is crucial to software development; hence, a good framework is essential.

This blog post talks about what test data management is, some of its tools, and the best ways to make things more efficient, compliant, and cost-effective.

Test data management?

Test data is information that businesses use mostly for checking software, not for production.  Software developers evaluate the software’s performance in various environments and settings using test data.  Test data helps developers enhance program functionality, identifying essential user pathways.  Realistic test data helps recreate errors and flaws.  When testing a system, testers typically can construct a test script. It can automatically and dynamically determine the appropriate values to input into the system. It can also observe how the system reacts to those values.

Test data management (TDM) is a method for generating and maintaining safe and suitable datasets. It can be utilized by multiple teams to verify the functionality of an application.

Modern teams access regulated data through test data management.  Software testing requires planning, developing, creating, securing, and managing test data for accuracy and reliability.  It entails providing the correct data for the appropriate test cases. Test data management ensures that test data is in the proper format.  Mostly, this is used for automatic testing.

Test data management includes keeping data in sync, making copies with different versions, identifying sensitive information, masking data for compliance purposes, and distributing test data across multiple clouds.

What is the significance of test data management?

The following are the reasons why proper test data management is essential:

Importance of data

Real-world data events should be very similar to test data to make sure the application works appropriately.  TDM gives testers access to pertinent data sets that reveal prospective issues in a range of scenarios.

Privacy and compliance with data

In the data-driven world of today, it is imperative to manage sensitive and confidential data.  TDM anonymizes or masks sensitive data to comply with GDPR and HIPAA.

The security and reliability of data

The content and organization of the dataset are assessed.  This helps uncover faults and anomalies in testing data, improving data quality and consistency.

Time and money savings

TDM optimizes the utilization of test data. It reduces the necessity for manual data creation and maintenance, resulting in cost and time reductions.  This reduces testing costs and time.

Minimizing risk

It ensures the correctness of testing scenarios by reducing data security threats using data masking.  This proactive strategy identifies and resolves safety issues before deployment.

Tools for test data management

Test data management tools assist administrators and executives in handling security controls, data access management, and downstream log audits. This enables organizations to promptly comply with data privacy and compliance regulations. It also minimizes data friction for the software test and AppDev teams.

Broadcom Test Data Manager

If you want to find, secure, design, develop, and provision “fit for purpose” test data efficiently and affordably so you can deliver applications faster, then you need Broadcom Test Data Manager.  Broadcom TDM offers Test Data Booking.

Delphix

This tool accelerates digital transformation with data management.  The company also provides data protection solutions, such as sensitive data masking, and virtualizes data in general.

IBM InfoSphere Optim

It assists software testers with data management concerns using a top-tier test data management solution.   They enhance platform, application, and database governance while simultaneously boosting performance and facilitating collaboration. Managing data appropriately during its lifetime helps businesses meet business goals with minimal risk.

Informatica TDM

The purpose of this tool is to find, group, and create test data. It is a highly visible and scalable platform.  It enables IT organizations to define subsets of test data from production settings

CA Test Data Manager

It offers a comprehensive suite of tools for the creation, management, and provisioning of test data.  It provides support for data masking and the production of synthetic data. It ensures test data is safe, authorized, and ready for testing.

Best practices for test data management

There is a requirement associated with the process of acquiring, possessing, and protecting test data.  High test coverage is impossible without appropriate test data. However, it is imperative to ensure that the test data does not include any sensitive data.

To conduct a thorough evaluation of all aspects of your code, it is necessary to use realistic data.  However, accessing, securing, and storing high-quality data is a challenging task.

1. Strategize test data management

The key to effective software testing is a clearly established Test Data Management (TDM) plan.  A comprehensive plan covers how to handle test data, setup, masking, and maintenance.  It entails the collaboration of data administration professionals to ensure that test data is consistent with real-world scenarios.

2. Prefer data discovery

Test data must be indicative of the system’s processed data to execute test cases.  Most organizations store data on many devices and platforms.

Thus, a thorough data overview is essential.  Then, it’s easier to choose data that correctly represents real-world circumstances.  Data discovery also helps software testing with sufficient data.

3. Automate the procedures

Doing all of the test data management tasks by hand takes a lot of time and leads to mistakes. Companies are currently facing a growing number of legislative and business regulations. HIPAA, GDPR, and CCPA are common examples.

Automation can save time, decrease errors, and boost efficiency in TDM. Automated test data management solutions that accelerate regulatory compliance. It provides the latest updates and insights that might help avoid difficulties. Making the right choice about the tool that fits your needs is important.

4. Use a solid data governance framework

It is critical to take appropriate precautions to safeguard test data and prevent unwanted access.  Due to the sensitive data passing through testing facilities, security concerns are high.  Therefore, effective data governance and access control solutions are needed to minimize software testing exposure.

Some common ways to keep private data safe are concealment of information, encryption, and tokenization.  These methods substitute sensitive data with unique IDs.

5. Keep testing data up to date

To keep test data up-to-date, TDM requires regular refreshments.  It also identifies production environment change-related difficulties.

The data is well-documented. Automation reduces errors and omissions during refresh.   Masking data ensures correct test data and prevents concerns and penalties.

Conclusion

A poorly designed test data management plan might undermine the company’s automated testing goals.  Businesses must have access to test data management principles-based test automation strategies.  High-quality software programs that satisfy user expectations require effective test data management.  It is very important to pick the appropriate test data management tool to keep your data safe, make sure you follow the rules, and speed up your testing processes.

Are you looking for robust test data management solutions? Qualitest can help you. They can help you achieve over 90% of test data coverage. Speak to an expert now!