Category Archives: Test Data

Business Applications: On the Tension between Efficient Testing and Compliance

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Smooth business processes need a stable IT landscape. Thus, IT departments spend time and money on testing their business applications. But what could be a reason for a tension between efficient testing and compliance needs? Sensitive data are the reason! Testing business applications requires adequate data in the databases of test systems. …

Read here the full article of my Keynote at the 37th meeting of the special interest group testing, analysis, and verification” of the German Informatics Society.

Test Data Management in Practice

Do you have issues with your legal and compliance department because test environments contain sensitive data outsourcing partners must not see? Do your testers have idle time because test data are missing or test environments have inconsistent data? If any of these challenges applies to your situation, the concepts of this paper can help. The first concept is database-application-aware test cases. They enforce that test cases for business applications provide all information needed for repeatable execution. Second, a type
concept eases the test case maintenance and preparation of test data for a test start without delays. Third, a test data catalogue lists database objects for the various types. Finally, architectural patterns describe various ways to set up test environments with production and/or synthetic test data. This paper focuses on integrating these concepts into the daily test process. This includes the tool aspect, which we illustrate with our Swisscom Test Data Organizer. Read the complete article Test Data Management in Practice

This article appeared appeared in the conference journal of the Software Quality Days 2013, Vienna.