Test Environment: What Is It and Why Do We Need It?

Testing, for sure, is a critical phase of the software development life cycle, when the team gets to examine and ensure the quality of an end product. However, to perform testing or check for bugs after an app’s update, you’ll need specific conditions for test execution. That’s what a test environment is for. And that’s what we are going to talk about in this post.

What is the test environment? Why is it an important part of a software pre-release strategy? Can you just test on the developer environment before making changes into production? Stick to the end for the answers.

What Is a Test Environment?

A test environment is a dedicated system for testing software that allows you to run the test cases you have defined. It supports test execution with hardware, software, and network configured. The purpose of a test environment is to allow the QA team to check system components and uncover possible errors.

Test environments can use on-site hardware and software or run in the cloud exploiting remote servers. In either case, it has to replicate the production scenarios, meaning the actual device or browser the software will run on.

The Importance of Test Environment

Answering the “why” question, we need to mention that a test environment frees QA engineers to modify data without affecting any real-life information. For instance, a bank is testing a new transfer system. It would be incredibly improper to shift money around real accounts to ensure that the brand new system works correctly.

Also, a test environment provides precise feedback about the quality and behavior of the application under test. It acts as an exact copy of the production environment.

Different Types of Test Environments

Before diving deeper into the types of test environments, we will mention the types of environments generally used in an SDLC. It will help to understand better how they are linked to distinct stages in the release process. So, there are:

• Development environment. This is where system development tasks, such as designing and programming, take place.
• Testing Environment. QA engineers, analysts, and other testing professionals use it to perform many forms of functional and non-functional testing via automated or manual techniques. The focus here is on testing individual components rather than the entire application.
• Staging environment. This is essentially a copy of the production environment. Its purpose is to verify if the application will behave correctly after the deployment.
• Production environment. It is the last stage in software development life cycle, where new builds or updates are moved into production for end users.

The Difference Between Testing & Staging Environments

At the first glance, these two environments may seem similar. But in fact, they deal with a bit of a different scale of work. While a test environment is meant primarily for examining individual software components, the staging environment is set-up to test the whole application.

Basically, the latter is a safe playground where you can test the entire app. It’s crucial that a staging environment is an exact replica of a production environment. Having detailed documentation is one of the main things that helps you achieve it. In particular, the documentation should describe all the needs and correct configuration for your production environment.

The Difference Between Testing & Staging Environments

Now, let’s talk about different types of test environments that help analyze various elements of a software program such as performance, user experience, security, etc. The most commonly used types of testing environments are:

• Performance testing environment. It allows measuring how fast an application responds to an interaction in terms of load speeds, input processing, stability, etc.
• Integration testing environment. It involves bringing together all of the various software units and testing them together as a group.
• Chaos testing environment. It allows measuring an application’s overall resiliency. The goal is to identify things that could go wrong in the app and mitigate them in advance.
• Security testing environment. Here, you can examine how secure the software is from malicious programs, viruses, threat actors, etc.
• Regression testing environment. It helps ensure that any adjustments you make positively impact the overall performance of the software.

Who Sets Up a Test Environment?

When it comes to the test environments, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. A developer or vendor may create the test environment. A QA team may not be involved in this activity if a development team provides the test environment. The test team is only required to do a readiness check (smoke testing) of the provided environment.

How Many Environments Are Enough?

There are discussions about how many environments a particular project really needs. As always, it depends. One project may only have a staging environment while another may require four or five test environments for proper examination. There’s no universal rule to cover the number of test environments for any project and product.

Some companies have tens of environments that support multi-stream project development, and QA specialists use them all actively to support continuous deployment. But usually, a software tester works with three or four environments listed above.

Sometimes staging and testing environments can be merged. There are two reasons for that. Firstly, hardware is expensive. Secondly, the more environments you have, the more problems you have to deal with. So, there is always a trade-off between cost and agility. And that’s what test environment managers have to be able to calculate.

Final Thoughts

Test environments represent an efficient and a safe space to conduct all your essential and most basic tests. They are a necessary tool in the tester’s kit. A reliable, scalable test environment aligned to the needs of the application under test is imperative to the success of software development.