What is Test Data Management? Why Do We Need It?

This article discusses TDM, and its need. Moreover, stakeholders interested in undertaking a TDM initiative, the challenges of managing test data, solutions that will help you define and implement your strategy, and the benefits of such an implementation.

What Is TDM and Why Do We Need It

Today’s enterprise systems rely heavily on data which calls for the need of efficient data handling so that developers do not spend much  of their time on data provisioning tasks. To save them time from data provisioning tasks, and to dedicate that time on developing new functionality and managing production problems, test data management is required.

An efficient TDM solution is a critical part of any enterprise because it ensures the provisioning of the required test data to in a timely and efficient manner repeatedly. The data being used must be according to required test conditions, and it must be anonymized to ensure data protection.

Test data management is important because of following factors:

1. Legislation

In recent years, local, federal, and international regulations are focusing on data protection and privacy more than ever. Regulation directives such as GDPR, CCPA, POPIA, and others require enterprises in various regions to protect user’s data for privacy and safety concerns. While many enterprises use user data for constructive reasons such as data testing, the possibility of data landing into wrong hands cannot be ruled out. Therefore, much legislation have made it mandatory for the businesses and organizations to scrutinize the way proprietary and confidential data is handled across a business enterprise.

Hence, many companies have implemented tighter security measures, strict audit controls, and other radical changes to their existing business practices which create new challenges for IT leaders. Because, other than responding to its core business needs, enterprises now have to adhere to the strict legislative requirements to avoid data exposure, theft, or misappropriation of customer. Test Data management ensures protection of financial, corporate, or personal sensitive information.

2. Risk mitigation

In order to protect test data files from getting breached, test data management is critical. IT enterprises are adopting different strategies and taking appropriate actions to safeguard their data assets. Much effort is focused on protecting data from external threats using tighter security access, firewalls, network, communications, storage, and audit counter measures. While external threats are combated effectively, studies reveal that most of the data breaches occur internally. The safety of data is compromised from within the enterprise.

While majority organizations believe that they have protected their data from external threats, internal environments outside of the production perimeter such as testing, development, or quality assurance usually have far less robust security controls. The nature of these tasks expose sensitive data to a larger variety of resources, including in-house staff, consultants, partners, outsourcers, and offshore personnel.

3. Recent Breaches

With every passing day, a new incident of data breach is happens. Just type “data breach 2020 headlines” in your search engine and you will come across numerous news of data breaches in all business sectors, from financial to healthcare, and from retail to cruise line.

4. Recent Fines

Being the owner of a business, you can’t take data breech casually for a variety of reasons. Other than the financial damages, there can be legal proceedings as well. Also, a data breach scandal damages the business reputation phenomenally to an extent that an enterprise cannot bounce back after encountering a scandal. Massive fines and settlements have been levied on many household named businesses in the past 2 years. In July 2019 a leading credit agency agreed to pay over $575 million for “failure to take reasonable steps to secure its network.”

Conclusion

Test Data Management ensures that the legislative requirements are being met, internal and external risks are being avoided, and measures have been taken to avoid breaches and penalties. All these factors make it inevitable for any enterprise to adopt TDM solution. GenRocket offers one stop Test Data Management solution for all business needs.