A development in recent years is that applications use an increasing number of different types of hardware and software. In many (big) organisations, different hardware and software components are also maintained by different parties. This makes setting up a test environment an organisational challenge. Many contacts and arrangements have to be made. It might happen that problems remain ‘hanging’ between parties: hardware configuration 1 is active, hardware configuration 2 is active and the interface between them is active, but messages don’t arrive and none of the three (or more!) parties feels it is the owner of the problem.

In summary, the availability of (chains of) test environments is a regular source of problems, both in terms of availability and consistency. As a result, automation projects must make a choice: take the system into production without adequate testing, or delaying the commissioning date. The bad availability of test environments is caused by both organisational and technical complexity. Tasks and mandates are broken up between the user (tester, test manager) and suppliers of (parts of) the test chain. Moreover, organisations often assign low priority to solving a non-functioning test environment.

Organisations may decide to solve the bottleneck of bad availability by allocating responsibility for it to the permanent test organisation described in Permanent Test Organisation. The permanent test organisation can provide services in setting up and maintaining (chains of) test environments.

The following sections discuss setting up and maintaining test environments as a service in greater detail. In the first place, the possible role of the permanent test organisation in setting up and maintaining test environments is established. We then look at the processes that need to be set up in the test organisation. The next step is identifying what type of environments can be provided and what makes them unique.

Required processes

A number of processes have to be set up to offer the services in the permanent test organisation. This also applies to the situation in which the test organisation fulfils the role of control centre for test environments. Two important service processes can be distinguished:

• Setting up a new test environment
• Maintaining a test environment.