15 Jul

Why data testing is a Boardroom issue. But all too often is not

15 July 2011 by Jo Wright

1 comment(s) for “Why data testing is a Boardroom issue. But all too often is not”

1. 

   Steve Littlejohn Says:
   16 August 2011I agree with you Jo to a certain extent. The trouble with many older companies is the organic growth of the systems before legislation was brought in such as the Data Protection Act. Data back in those days could be used with impunity and a copy of production data was either relatively easy or a difficult chore as data tools were expensive and few and far between. As least then there were normally restrictions about who could see or use the data in the environments although obfuscation was never used. The data grew over the years however, as testing was always done that way, the data was either recopied or had to rely on occasional refreshes to keep it valid. Mind you I should point out that a refresh was normally just to add new Production data rather than clear it down completely. Due to this the preception that data is a problem is hidden from the 'C' levels, its been running smoothly for years, there's a bit of grumbling but that's standard for a bunch of techies - right?!
   
   These days with so many data losses companies are becoming more aware that the data is an issue. They might start with addressing their security and data quality in Production but for testers hopefully it is only a matter or time before they realise what testers are using to test. The data could be in any state but it is for the most part still Production data - and could still be a cause of embarrassment if it escapes the test environment.
   
   In my many years experience of investigating and improving companies' use of data I have rarely found a company that can easily supply obfuscated, integrated (across the data landscape)sets of data for test environments that fully meets the tester's requirements. There are a lot of perceptions out there - its production data so it provides 100 percent test coverage, its safe to use production data copies for testing mailing systems, its a test environment so it doesn't matter who sees the data, users always need to see production data or they can't understand it and so it goes on - but these are excuses to avoid solving the data problems.
   
   It is a boardroom issue in that the 'C' levels need to understand that they have serious issues at the "coal face" from which their systems are mined. It is the CTO that has to make them understand that data protection breaches are probably happening every day without recognition within their test environments. Production systems tend to be ring-fenced and secure but their test environments are being exported, with their copied Production data, to various parts of the world as part of outsourcing deals. Once this is realised and addressed the testers for once might actually be able to get the right tools to obtain or create the right data at the right time. Perhaps its also time for testers to rise up and point out the dangers of the data in the test environments!