Test Data Management is the creation of non-production data sets that reliably mimic an organization's actual data so that systems and application developers can perform rigorous and valid systems tests. It combines the tools and processes required to efficiently provision compliant data for software testing.
Test data management is a critical process in the testing lifecycle. It helps businesses:
Optimize effort spent to generate test data and run tests, leading to a faster test process
Maintain the quality of their products
Protect the privacy of sensitive information regarding the enterprise or its clients
Test data is important because it’s required by all kinds of tests throughout your test suite, including manual and automated tests. Good test data lets you validate common or high-value user journeys, test for edge cases, reproduce defects, and simulate errors.
Key Principles of TDM
Adequate test data is available to run full automated and manual test suites
Test data for automated test suites can be acquired on demand
Test data does not limit or constrain the automated tests that teams can run
