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Managing the Test Data Nightmare - Andrew Knight
Mastering Test Data Management: strategies and techniques for effective data prep, including dynamic data, automation, and synthetic data, to ensure reliable and efficient testing.
- Avoid hard coding test data references, instead choose the best strategy for your needs.
- Treat shared data as immutable or unchanging and avoid collisions.
- Dynamic data preparation creates data on the fly, reducing dependency on databases and services.
- Avoid manual configuration, use automation and tools to create data.
- Use flat files or environment variables for test control inputs.
- Choose a data preparation strategy that minimizes data sharing.
- Avoid using literals for values that originate from the product, use dynamic data prep instead.
- Shared data can cause brittleness, use dynamic data prep to avoid it.
- Automation can create data deterministically or randomly, depending on your needs.
- Consider using synthetic data if managing real data is too much hassle.
- Isolate test environments and avoid external actors from interrupting tests.
- Consider using a format like JSON or YAML for data preparation.
- Use the “do no harm and leave no trace” principle when preparing test data.
- Avoid static data that may become stale over time.
- Clone databases or use database clones for easy data setup.
- Use configuration metadata to describe product configuration for the target environment.