This webinar was co-hosted by Curiosity and Windocks on September 13th, 2022. Watch the webinar on demand: https://www.curiositysoftware.ie/production-systems-test-ready-data-webinar-windocks Most organisations today rely on production systems for test data, as 54% of test teams depend on production data copies [1]. Yet, using production data for testing poses challenges in data quality, staleness, and compliance. Production data often includes sensitive information, but lacks data to support diverse test scenarios. Refreshing data via backups is furthermore slow, creating out-of-date and costly test environments. There is additionally never enough data for parallel teams and tests, introducing constraints and test failures that derail rapid software delivery. This webinar will set out how production databases can be made “test ready” and delivered on demand, enabling rapid, rigorous and compliant testing. Veteran test data inventor, Huw Price, will team up with Paul Stanton, a database virtualisation expert and co-founder of Windocks. They will set out a roadmap for making complete and compliant data available on-the-fly during rapid software development and CI/CD. This strategy will include: 1. Data analysis, profiling, and archaeology, understanding the location of sensitive information and coverage gaps across environments. 2. Just in time data “find and makes”, automatically finding and making complete and compliant data during manual testing, test automation, and CI/CD. 3. On demand database virtualisation and orchestration, serving low-cost virtual data copies in parallel and in seconds. [1] Capgemini, Sogeti (2021), The World Quality Report 2021-22. Retrieved from https://www.capgemini.com/gb-en/research/world-quality-report-wqr-2021-22/ on 18/02/2022.

1. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022
Turn your production
systems into test-ready data
13th September 2022
Windocks
Huw Price
Managing Director
Curiosity Software
Huw.Price@Curiosity.Software
@DataInventor
Paul Stanton
Founder & Vice President
Windocks
PaulS@Windocks.com
@WinDocks
Martin Wheeler,
Senior Engineer
Curiosity Software
Martin.Wheeler@Curiosity.Software
@CuriositySoft

2. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
What we’re going to show you today
• Today we will show you: Virtual Databases,
Virtual sandboxing - backed by stateful databases
• This provides: Dynamic, virtual environments for
isolated & integration testing, spun up on-the-fly

3. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Constrained
component
Costly
infrastructure
Unfinished
integration
A brief history of data environment
management
Idling, cannibalisation, no parallelization, no integration
Shared
environment
Many to one
relationship
Cost
Coverage
Delays
Broken
tests

4. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Add stubs, mocking, and/or SV
1:1 relationship
Request
Response
(Unfinished)
integrations
Legacy
Virtual services
(Unfinished)
integrations
Legacy
I&O Costs Parallelisation E2E
Everyone’s happy?
☺

5. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Challenges of traditional SV
1. Time investment for incomplete services
1. Hardcoded 1:1 mapping of Request/Response
2. Slow-to-define services and stubs/mocks
3. Brittle and unresponsive to new requests
SV risks becoming its own development project
New request
Broken or missing
response
More maintenance/
scripting needed

6. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Challenges of traditional SV
1. Time investment for incomplete services
2. SV is only as good as the data behind it
3. How do you link SV to tests – and target it?
4. How do you align data for E2E and integration
tests?
New request
Broken or missing
response
Incomplete data = low coverage
Inconsistent data = broken tests
Sensitive data = legislative risks
Slow-to-provision data = delays
Testing
Data

7. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
The need
What is Test Environment Management (TEM) for CI/CD?

8. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Input/Generate:
Test Cases &
Exploritory
Automated
tests
Stories and
new dev
System Topology (possible environments)
UI/GUI
API
Service
Datastore
Actual results
Test assertions &
deep system
comparisons
Blended tests from the whole pyramid
Integrated, end-to-end or isolated
Targeted, on-the-fly, “just in time”
TEM and Data for
CI/CD
Virtual
Virtual
Virtual

9. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Input/Generate:
Test Cases &
Manual Dev
Automated
tests
Stories and
new dev
Actual results
Test assertions &
deep system
comparisons
CI/CD Pipeline
Plumbed into your CI/CD Pipeline

10. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Reducing your blast radius – what
does it mean?
• Have you made a change in one place and broken everything?
• Have you changed a config file and it's brought the system to its
knees?
• What is your integration strategy? What is your E2E strategy?
• What is the value of your E2E strategy?
• Do you know the impact of a potential change before you start?
• Keywords: Isolation, observability, testability

11. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Providing all this on demand, in
parallel, and within budget
“Just in time” within CI/CD pipelines
Virtual
databases
Test data and synthetic
responses
Virtual
Sandboxing
Test Data
Automation

12. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
On demand database
virtualisation
Paul Stanton, Windocks

13. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Curiosity Software + Windocks database repository

14. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Why database virtualisation
1. Storage costs are cut by 90%
2. Use data in containers, Kubernetes, as well as conventional instances
3. Customising databases with masking, synthetic data is a simple configuration
driven process. No custom scripts required.
4. Improved development, test, and Continuous Integration support for faster
releases and fewer production bugs
5. Finally, reduce the DBA overhead during lower-level DB delivery/provisioning!

15. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
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

16. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
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!

17. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Integrating Test Data
Automation and Virtual
Sandboxing
Huw Price, Curiosity

18. Demo
© Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022

19. What is an API Sandbox ?
Windocks – DB1
19
Administrators
Validation of Request Data
Integrates with all common
DevOps tools
Simulation of Back Office
Environment
Generation of complex data
User or Oauth based access
control
Windocks – Huw
Windocks – QA
Windocks – QA2

20. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Providing all this on demand, in
parallel, and within budget
“Just in time” within CI/CD pipelines
Virtual
databases
Test data and synthetic
responses
Virtual
Sandboxing
Test Data
Automation

21. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Key differentiators vs Service
Virtualisation
1. Virtual Sandboxes are underpinned by stateful data models
1. Ensure coverage with complete test data and virtual data
2. Minimal maintenance  configure once, generate data dynamically
3. Masked or synthetic data is compliant
2. Automated and parameterisable – triggered on-the-fly
3. Right-sized and targeted – not full “digital twins”

22. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Why database virtualisation
1. Storage costs are cut by 90%
2. Use data in containers, Kubernetes, as well as conventional instances
3. Customising databases with masking, synthetic data is a simple configuration
driven process. No custom scripts required.
4. Improved development, test, and Continuous Integration support for faster
releases and fewer production bugs
5. Finally, reduce the DBA overhead during lower-level DB delivery/provisioning!

23. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
Real-time
targeting
User story
generation
Test
generation
Test Data
Automation
Virtual
Sandboxing
Rapidly changing inputs
An integrated software
delivery ecosystem
Wherever a change/input occurs
across your SDLC, everything
needed for testing and
development should ripple
automatically from it

24. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022
Questions and Discussion

25. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022 Windocks
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.

26. © Curiosity Software Ireland Ltd. 2022
Thank you
Huw.Price@Curiosity.Software
PaulS@Windocks.com
Windocks