Development Has Moved On: Test data needs to catch up with containers

© Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2021
Development has moved on
Test data needs to catch up with containers,
microservices and “the world of the API”
Moderator: Tom Pryce
Communication Manager, Curiosity
Thomas.Pryce@Curiosity.Software
@TomTestsToo
Huw Price
Managing Director
Curiosity Software
Huw.Price@Curiosity.Software
@DataInventor
Paul Stanton
Founder & Vice President
Windocks
PaulS@Windocks.com
@WinDocks
Windocks Martin Wheeler,
Senior Engineer
Curiosity Software
Martin.Wheeler@Curiosity.Software
@CuriositySoft

© Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2021 Windocks
Development has moved on: Test Data
needs to catch up
1. Huw Price: (Test) Data Breaks DevOps
2. Paul Stanton: Modernising Test Data
3. Demo: Containerised “Test Data Automation”
4. Q&A, discussion and next steps

Containers + virtualized databases, with
Curiosity Software Test Data Automation
Databases delivered in seconds, with masking, subsetting, and synthetic
data orchestrated with Curiosity Automation
• Environments scale to deliver scores of databases and multi TBs
• Each environment is 40 MB on delivery, up to 100 per VM
• SQL Server containers are named instances, support AD, Windows Authentication, and
existing storage
• Containers = fast, efficient, superior automation, and dev/test are up and running in
minutes

(Test) Data Breaks DevOps
Huw Price, Curiosity Software

DevOps pipelines are only as fast as
their slowest part
• Testing consumes at least 22%
of the average IT budget.1
• Half of developers encounter
the most delays during testing.2
Test Data is the place to
fix DevOps bottlenecks
Original Image: Khanargy, Wikimedia Commons, published under CC BY-SA
4.0 license.
[1] Capgemini, Sogeti (2020), The World Quality Report 2020-1
[2] GitLab (2019), 2019 Global Developer Report
[3] Capgemini, Sogeti (2019), World Quality Report 2019-20
2019: The average
QA team spent 44% of their
time searching for, managing
and generating data.3

Test data ‘provisioning’ needs to catch
up with modern delivery
Development now moves at lightning speed. Why? It’s embraced containerisation, APIs
and reusable repositories.
In this new reality, parallel test teams and automation frameworks need:
1. Data to test lots of different technologies in combination.
2. Combinations of different versions of data.
3. Compact data for testing every distinct test scenario – positive, negative, new, unexpected.
4. Data that does not expose sensitive information to test environments.
5. All the above, at the pace with which developers rip-and-replace new containers.

Test Data: The traditional approach is
not fit for purpose.
Moving copies of production databases to test environments is too slow and
costly. Nor can it match the complexity of intricate, containerised systems.
• The data is historical, low variety and therefore low coverage.
• The data is unavailable in parallel – there’s never enough of it.
• The data contains personally and commercially sensitive information.
• The data is slow to move and requires vast amounts of costly infrastructure.
• By the time data is received, the combination of components have moved on.

Containers switch all the time. Can
“provisioning” keep up?
Applications
Messages
Databases Files Mainframe
Complex data stored throughout different file types and databases
Data Engineers
Must find exact data combinations in the vast data.
Data must link across dependent systems and sub-systems to test end-to-end.
Test Data Bottlenecks:
✘ Slow and complex data setup (scripting, hand-cranking).
✘ It’s impossible to find data for every dependency.
✘ Data is not linked to tests - it’s hard to know what data is needed.
✘ Complex data lookups are repeated for each request and UAT refresh.
Shared Test Environment
‘Parallel’ testers and frameworks
CI/CD tool approves and fulfils requests
- Data isn’t available in sprint.
- Old and misaligned data
creates test failures.
- We use up each other’s data.
- Data undermines coverage.
- Bugs hit production.
✘ ✘
✘

How easy is it to find/make data for
every test and every dependency?
…Now update that data every time a developer changes one container or the test suite changes.
A simplified example: What data is needed when testing an Ecommerce system end-to-end?
User generated data
- Personal details
- Banking information
- Mailing addresses
- Order details
- Login details
Web store
Shopping basket
Database
Customer, product,
stock and supplier info
REST API
JSON Message
Payment system
User redirected to
bank secure payment
Web store
Thankyou page
Request/Response
Email Server
Confirmation
email sent

Databases
Files
Mainframes
APIs/Messages
Applications
Interrelated data sources
Simple
Configuration
Compliant and
complete data
for every test
Subset
Mask
Generate
Clone
TDA and Windocks: Modernising Test
Data
Every process is fully parameterized, combinable.
They can all be triggered within automation and CI/CD
Windocks
Virtual data copies,
fully database cloning and
containerized deployment
in seconds
Databases
Files
Mainframes
Applications
Containerised test environments
reflect the latest system
Parallel test teams, CI/CD pipleines, automation frameworks
and source control trigger test data allocation jobs on demand

Modernising Test Data
Paul Stanton, Windocks

Curiosity Software + Windocks database repository

Docker expertise needed? No!
Docker details are abstracted with a web application and API
A plain text “dockerfile” defines each database image:
FROM mssql-2019
SETUPCLONING FULL dbname D:backupsopsdbname.bak
COPY datamasking.sql .
RUN datamasking.sql

Pilot the database repository
• Any on premise infrastructure or cloud
• Containers and database virtualization
• Reduce VM sprawl, average 50 to 70% dev/test cost reduction
• Improve data security/governance, with RBAC, and audit logs
• Up and running in minutes!

Demo

The Windocks Portal and API

Create a DB copy, enhance data,
create messages…
Virtual data copy
Run tests
Generate synthetic
data
Create order
messages
Windocks

Test data to match the speed and
complexity of modern development
• Complete and compliant data on demand, generating and masking data as it
moves to multiple containers.
• Multiple test data utilities resolve as tests are generated or run by CI/CD pipelines
and test automation frameworks.
• Parallel test teams and frameworks quickly empty and restore the containers they
need, all without the delays of slow data provisioning or complex configuration.
• Organisations retain full visibility and control over data, while enjoying the added
affordability of database virtualisation.

Questions and Discussion

Find out more
• Book a free online workshop – Visit TestDataAutomation.io
and hit “Arrange Demo”.
• Head to CuriositySoftware.ie for videos, webinars & eBooks.
• Head to Windocks.com to discover more about test data
containerisation.

Thank you
Huw.Price@Curiosity.Software
PaulS@Windocks.com
Windocks

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