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Tag: TEM

  • A New DevOps Test Environment Platform is Needed

    A New DevOps Test Environment Platform is Needed

    Test environment management is bottlenecking DevOps transformations and is driving the need for a new test environment management platform solution. On-demand test environments in which developers and testers do not have to wait for a shared environment are sorely needed.

    The evidence is clear. In my book Engineering DevOps I indicated that finding and setting up test environments is a primary source of bottlenecks in DevOps value streams.

    In my February 2021 webinar with Plutora, I presented Best Practices for Developing Test Management Environments. I indicated that orchestrating and managing test environments is often a primary source of delays and waste within value streams.

    The State of Testing Report 2020 by PractiTest indicates that DevOps practices increased 57%; from 26% in 2017 to 41% in 2020. The report revealed that 46% of testing has shifted to using CI/CD processes, 55% are actively involved in shifting testing left and 36% are testing in production. This is clear evidence that DevOps testing is on the rise.

    Wolfgang Platz’s December 2019 article Why Software Testing Remains a Bottleneck indicates that testing is responsible for more delays than any other part of the development process – accounting for 52% of the bottlenecks in the development process. And  53% of respondents to the World Quality Report 2020-21 indicated that test environments are not available when needed, 67% lack the capability to book and manage test environments and 71% lack visibility of available test environments.

    An article by Velocity echoes the problems with pre-production environments. “With the rise of microservices and cloud-native applications, environments are becoming more complex. Often you need to wait or compete to get access to develop on a specific microservice, or can spend time waiting to deploy to a shared staging environment only to realize something already changed, and you’re back to square one.”

    The Continuous Testing Report – 2020 by Capgemini defines test environment management (TEM) as managing infrastructures, test data and applications to support testing on demand. These environments are one of the greatest impediments to continuous testing. In this report, 36% of respondents said they are spending more than half their time building and managing test environments; 44% of respondents indicate they spend weeks of their time searching, managing and generating test data.

    Test environments should be regarded as functions to be spun up or destroyed at will, with virtualization, infrastructure-as-code (IaC)  practices, service virtualization, containerization and improved test data management.

    Given all the above evidence, it is clear that a new approach to DevOps test environment management is needed.

    The following are examples of benefits that DevOps test environment management platforms need to offer:

    • Compatible with current tools:
      • Automatically map and configure application infrastructure to develop and test multiple services in an environment that runs just like it would in production. This needs to be fully agnostic to cloud and tech stacks, such as Kubernetes and other environments.
      • The platform needs to work on applications in parallel without disrupting others, with full access to data and third-party dependencies.
    • Automatic configuration and maintenance:
      • The platform needs to automatically configure and update any changes within the production infrastructure’s mapping in real-time so ephemeral environments will always be synced with what is in production. Instead of having to spend time making sure any changes are configured, the platform will ensure the right environment that replicates production, without having to wait.
    • Data and third-party dependencies:
      • The platform needs to load the relevant data and third-party resources that are vital parts of the environment to test, work and debug against, so test environments will, as closely as possible, mimic working in production.
    • Team collaboration:
      • The platform needs the capability to share ephemeral test environments with other stakeholders so they get visibility and can collaborate for faster feedback cycles. This is also important for collaborating for debugging.

    What This Means

    DevOps testing is on the rise, and test environments are a major bottleneck for DevOps testing. A new DevOps test environment management platform is needed to reduce the bottlenecks. On-demand test environments in which developers and testers do not have to wait for a shared test environment are needed. Such a solution would improve agility and reduce wasteful orchestration bottlenecks in test, improve quality and risk management through comprehensive and automated testing and enable continuous improvement by providing more intelligent insights and feedback.

  • Opportunity Knocks: Survey Highlights Substantial Cost Savings and Long-Term ROI from Test Environment Management Solutions

    Study finds that despite enterprises needing test environment management capabilities and the potential savings they bring, there is a staggering lack of adoption and maturity.

    SANTA CLARA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Plutora, leading provider of value stream management solutions for enterprise IT, today announced the full findings of a new EMA report, sponsored by Plutora, titled EMA 2018 Test Environment Management Survey. The study demonstrates the immediate cost savings that test environment management (TEM) tools provide, yet finds that only four percent of large enterprises have fully integrated TEM processes into organizational DNA.

    One of the most striking findings that emerged from the survey is the scale of test environments in enterprises. There is an average of 188 test environments per enterprise, with the highest total count at 685, and the average spend to support test environments is $682,000 per year. Test environments of this number sprawl and become complex, which directly impact the ability to manage them.

    Enterprises are missing out on the advantage of TEM tools

    Despite the scale at which enterprises are standing up and utilizing test environments, the adoption of tools to manage and maintain them is strikingly low. Nearly a quarter of respondents in the survey are not using a commercial TEM tool with two-thirds employing their own ad hoc TEM process. This has a significant impact because when the maturity of commercial TEM tools is compared to that of in-house, non-commercial tools, the difference is unmistakable: commercial TEM tools are more advanced and in-house tool users lag in all the measurements of TEM maturity.

    Of those utilizing TEM tools, key functionalities respondents are looking for include provisioning and deployment of test environments, integration with configuration management tools and integration with ITSM tools as their top three priorities.

    The study also shows that organizations already embracing TEM tools, and looking to mature, recognize the need to develop an even more automated and scalable approach to TEM. They also have a need to integrate the process with existing tools for development, testing and deployment in order to implement a more effective way to manage TEM activities. While those currently using in-house TEM tools are looking for automation, scalability and to transition away from the ad hoc TEM processes they are currently using.

    Payback on TEM investment occurs immediately and across the entire application lifecycle

    Whatever stage of maturity TEM tool integration is at in an organization, one of the key metrics to understand is the cost savings that can come from optimizing management and embracing the capabilities of commercial tools.

    Through faster provisioning, reduced number and cost of test environments, and improved quality, organizations can save between $600 and $4,000 per test environment and ultimately reduce the development and test time, saving close to $10,000 for each release.

    No matter what the total of overall production releases is, the payback on TEM investment will occur almost immediately. Also, if these savings are viewed as cost avoidance, ROI will be realized in one or two months.

    Additionally, the analysis finds that TEM technology users have not fully embraced the full range of capabilities that robust TEM tools provide. While users are seeing the benefits from many of the capabilities like the deployment of test environments and capacity planning, there is still opportunity for growth in adoption of other capabilities like verifying and maintaining the health of test environments and integrating with CI/CD tools.

    “TEM is a technology that every enterprise should be using to the fullest,” said Stephen Hendrick, research director, EMA. “At the core of TEM there is no inefficiency. Environments are spun up exactly as they need to be. Developers and testers can be productive immediately. And ultimately, there is less developer time wasted making for less ambiguity and inconsistency when it comes to what is actually being developed and released. This is reinforced when we totalled up the cost savings, and confirmed our suspicions – using TEM tools can save the average enterprise over a million dollars a year. Organizations, and developers, would jump at the chance to reallocate this budget to projects that move the business forward and it is within their reach through the advancements of TEM tools.”

    “This research demonstrates that any organization that isn’t making the effort to fully embrace the advantages of commercial TEM tools is missing out,” said Bob Davis, CMO, Plutora. “In today’s software-driven environment, enterprises that address any single inefficiency in its application lifecycle can gain competitive ground, but if you can bring about a series of time-saving, effort-reducing and quality-enhancing elements to the process that TEM tools provide, you can realize enormous benefits. It’s an easy lift with a huge payoff.”

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    About Plutora:

    Plutora, the market leader of value stream management solutions for enterprise IT, improves the speed and quality of software creation by capturing, visualizing and analyzing critical indicators of every aspect of the delivery process. Plutora orchestrates release pipelines across a diverse ecosystem of development methodologies, manages hybrid test environments, correlates data from existing toolchains, and incorporates test metrics gathered at every step. The Plutora Platform ensures organizational alignment of software development with business strategy and provides visibility, analytics and a system of insights into the entire value stream, guiding continuous improvement through the measured outcomes of each effort.

    For more information, visit us http://www.plutora.com/.