No software can sustain itself in the market without testing – Do you agree? Yes? That’s cool! Testing is crucial in any software development life cycle. With an ever-growing rate of software products, do you know that almost 77% of testers have worked on projects related to web testing in the year 2019? With an estimated 25 billion Internet-oriented devices as of 2021, this percentage should have increased. Show
A robust testing methodology is all it takes to combat bugs. However, a weak testing methodology can lead to some bugs that may not be cosmetic but will result in the software being unable to fulfill the user’s needs. To fulfill the user’s needs and make the testing task easy, the term “Testing Environment” came into the picture. A testing environment is nothing but software and hardware configuration allowing testing teams to run perfect test cases. Do you want to enable test execution with the right software, hardware, and network configuration? A test environment is your go-to place. In this post, we are going to explore what is test environment and its major features and elements related to a test environment. What is Test Environment?A test environment is a host/server that allows you to run the test cases according to the user’s or software’s requirement to be tested. It sets up the host and integrates hardware (RAM, processor speed), software, and network configurations. Test environments are used to test and identify the application for bugs and find a possible fix for the same for the smooth functioning of the application for the user. A cross browser test environment is a perfect example of a test environment for testing on different browsers and browser versions. The test environment is used by the testing teams to check the quality and impact of the application before handing it to the user. It can test a specific part of an application using different configurations and data setups. It’s an essential part of the agile development methodology. When you start learning about the test environment, you need to understand organizing the testing environment. The easiest way of organizing test data is through automation, and by building and deploying the automation in place, you can successfully manage environments. Before working on your testing environment, you must look into a few factors and processes. It’s a must to understand the testing process to set the test environment. This is what a basic testing process looks like: Step 1: Assessing the development plan. How do you manage the test process? That’s where a test environment comes into play. A test environment can offer accurate feedback about the behavior and quality of the application under test. Now let’s try to understand what is test environment elements. Elements of Test EnvironmentAn environment that’s conducive to testing is a key component to ensuring the quality of test case executions. A stable test environment allows for dependable and consistent performance from the application under test and the testers themselves, as well as guaranteeing that all testers will work with a standard set of predetermined variables when conducting their tests. To achieve this type of test environment, several important elements need to exist in the test environment: Let’s delve deeper into what is test environment elements. Various elements can be listed, and the elements are as follows.
Get the best testing environment. Try LambdaTest Now! What is Staging Environment?A staging environment is nearly a practical copy of a production environment for software testing. All the code is present on the server itself of the local machine. When we have to do major version updates, it can be on the staging environment, where we can also fix the issues that come up. It’s a known fact that just because your web application has passed the staging environment successfully, it might or might not pass the production environment, especially during cross browser testing, where you render your web application across different browsers, OS, and devices. You would never know what bugs your customers would face until you enter the production stage. Every agile tester would come across a new testing requirement on a daily, weekly, or bi-monthly basis. When you focus on the test environment in the production stage, who would take care of the staging, the previous stage of the production stage, in case of any code changes? You need to focus on testing in both the staging and the production environment, which is an exhausting phase if done manually. In such cases, it’s widely believed that Selenium automation can help you during testing in production phase. Do you want to know more about automation testing? Watch our video: Make sure you subscribe to our LambdaTest YouTube channel to learn more about cross browser compatibility, automated browser testing, and more. Difference between Staging and Production Environment?The difference, in simple words, means staging is the pre-production resembling a production environment exactly. What do we need to know further? Let’s take a look:
Test your website on 3000+ browsers, OS, and devices. Try LambdaTest Now! What is Test Bed?A test bed is a test environment set up to test data without affecting the live production servers. A test bed is not only used by a tester but is also used by developers for the testing of different parts of an application without affecting the live production of the application. Test beds are used to test rocket engines and in aircraft development for testing purposes. Physical facilitators are needed, and the software configuration binds up together and is treated as a test bed. Difference between the Test Environment and Test BedThe terms test environment and test bed are often confused as the same, but these terms do not refer to the same thing. It is important to understand their differences. Test Environment: It is an environment that allows you to run the test cases according to the requirement of the user. It integrates the hardware (RAM, processor speed, and network configurations). Simply put, the test environment includes hardware elements and the software environment in which the tests are performed. Test Bed: It is a configuration for execution or performance, specially designed for testing. Test bed contains test data used to verify the features and functionalities of other software/applications. Importance of Test EnvironmentIt’s vital to have a test environment since you can easily avoid negative test environment impacts, production stage downtime, and so on. Let’s see why we need to involve it:
Get the most out of performance testing. Try LambdaTest Now! Types of Test EnvironmentWhen it comes to testing, different types of environments simply help reduce software flaws and issues. Here is your answer to test environment types:
Challenges in setting up Test EnvironmentTest environment management requires an integrated approach. It’s quite apparent that there are many challenges involved, but let’s pick up the most vital ones:
Using a test orchestration and execution platform like LambdaTest eliminates the requirement for in-house infrastructure. It provides a cloud-based, reliable infrastructure for 3000+ browser and OS combinations. All of your tests may be run in a secure cloud environment. Here is a quick rundown of the features offered by the LambdaTest platform –
Best Practices for setting up Test EnvironmentWhen you delve deeper into what is test environment best practices, you need to remember a few of them without which a testing environment cannot function properly. Here is the needed list:
A test environment is a host/server that allows you to run the test cases according to the requirement of the user or software to be tested. It not only sets up the host but also integrates hardware, software, and network configurations. It is also important to provide bug-free functional applications to the user. Hence, we can say that the Testing environment plays a crucial role in testing software/applications and is widely used by most testers and developers to provide a better and more satisfying service to the user.
A testing environment is a software and hardware configuration, allowing testing teams to run different test cases. The test environment is responsible for enabling test execution using the right software, hardware, and network. You can set up the test environment or test bed as per the Application Under Test requirements.
A test environment is used to offer the right feedback about the behavior and quality of the application under test. You can use it to enable the needed setup for running the test. You need a testing environment for executing actual and productive testing of any software product with developed test scripts. |