TDM is the formation of data sets that are a reliable imitation of actual data in the production of an organization’s data. This replication is created to help application developers and testers to perform rigorous and valid systems tests, to test applications with real data to check the efficiency and effectiveness of application being developed. Test Data Management software allow the software quality and testing team to have control over the data, files, rules, and policies produced during the entire software-testing life cycle. It is widely adopted by the organizations across the globe for improving testing effectiveness, reducing time and cost, and providing high quality and safe test data through a coordinated and easy-to-manage process. Test data plays an important role in assuring the quality of the application, hence the management and streamlining of test data plays an equally important role in quality assurance of any application that should be released to the customers.
Top 10 Test Data Management software in 2020:
- BROADCOM LIMITED
- INFORMATICA
- IBM
- SOLIX TECHNOLOGIES
- SAP
- IRI
- DELPHIX
- HPE
- CIGNITI
- INFOSYS
Top free Test Data Management Software
- TestRail
- PractiTest
- Zephyr
- Tricentis qTest
- QMetry Test Management
- SpiraTest
- Test Collab
- TestCaseLab
- Meliora Testlab
- Eyes
Top Applications of Test Data Management Software
Test management tools help teams in development organise, monitor, and maintain software test results. Developers are using test management approaches to keep test scenarios results in an archive-like framework, which are then transformed into actionable reports. Some of the applications are:
- Data subsetting
- Data masking
- Data profiling and analysis
- Data compliance and security
- Synthetic test data generation
- Data provisioning
- Data monitoring
Top features of Test Data Management Software
Management of research data becomes very important during the life cycle of the study. The amount of data that is generated to test the application is enormous. Reporting the results minimizes the time spent on data processing and reporting contributes significantly to the efficiency of a product as a whole. Some of the features are:
- Identify common test data elements
- Aging, masking and archiving
- Prioritization and allocation
- Report generation and dashboards
- Creating and implementing business rules
- Automation suite for master data
- Masking, archiving and versioning
The MicroQuadrant matrix provides information about the major players offering Test Data Management software and services, and outlines the findings and analysis on how well each market vendor performs within the predefined criteria. The MicroQuadrant matrix highlights the top vendors in the TDM market. Vendor evaluations are based on 2 broad categories: strength of product portfolio and business strategy excellence. Each category carries various criteria, based on which the vendors have been evaluated. The evaluation criteria considered under strength of product portfolio include breadth and depth of product offering, product feature and functionality, product differentiation and impact on customer value, and product quality and reliability. The evaluation criteria considered under business strategy excellence include geographic footprint, channel strategy and fit, vision alignment, and effectiveness of growth strategy.
CA Technologies, Informatica, IBM, IRI, and Solix are the leading players in the TDM market and are recognized as the visionary leaders. They have a strong portfolio of Test Data Management software and associated services. These vendors are marking their market presence by offering solutions that are required by most of the organizations. These vendors have robust business strategies to achieve continued growth in the market.
Capgemini, Cigniti, Cognizant, Doble, HPE, Infosys, SAP, SQS, and Wipro are recognized as the dynamic differentiators. These companies have strong business strategies with extensive channel network and market reach. Over the years, the dynamic vendors have been consistently generating positive revenue growth in the TDM market with their product offerings. Moreover, their market position is enhanced by the organic and inorganic strategies undertaken by them over the period.
DATPROF, Delphix, and MENTIS are recognized as the innovators in the TDM market. They have a wide portfolio of Test Data Management software and services, and have the potential to build strong business strategies to be at par with the visionary leaders. These vendors have been providing TDM offerings as per the customers’ demands. Innovators have been at the forefront in deploying their solutions for the niche and custom requirements of the clients.
Actifio, Compuware, GenRocket, Original Software, TechArcis, TestingXperts, Ekobit, and Zephyr are recognized as the emerging players in the TDM market. The emerging companies specialize in offering highly niche and tailor-made solutions and services to their clients. These companies help enterprises not only build and manage the content-driven processes but also support new ways of working to drive the business results.
Test Data Management softwares serve the applications, such as data subsetting, data masking, data profiling and analysis, data compliance and security, synthetic data generation, and others (data provisioning and data monitoring). The replication of the exact data used in the production system in the testing environment is crucial for the successful operation of certain applications. A system contains data in various formats and types. Various rules need to be applied to various types of data to ensure the correct flow of data. TDM applications extract the subset of the data from the collected data and masks the sensitive data. Then, it compares the accuracy of the data carried out by the application.
DATA SUBSETTING
Data subsetting is the process of sampling a part of the production database and replicating it to the test environment. Data subsetting reduces storage costs, data refresh time, and infrastructure costs. The primary goal of the data subsetting solution vendors is to provide simple and effective ways to slice the data from a large production data. Data subsetting accelerates the test process and development cycles, thereby creating the right-sized test systems. A scalable data subset from heterogeneous applications supports a wide variety of databases and applications. Data subsetting creates smaller, targeted databases from large, complex databases.
DATA MASKING
Data masking is a process of creating similar, but inauthentic versions of the organization’s production data, which can be used for data testing. Data masking is used to protect the actual data while keeping the functional behaviour intact for the testing purpose. Most organizations have strict security controls to protect the production data in their databases. To maintain the regulatory compliances, real data exposure to IT vendors is impossible, and therefore alteration of the original data becomes a mandate. However, the format of the data remains the same. The original data may be altered in a number of ways, including encryption, character shuffling, and word substitution.
DATA PROFILING AND ANALYSIS
Data profiling is a process of examining the data from the existing databases and collecting useful information from the data. Data profiling helps in improving the ability of the search data, assigns it to a particular category, checks the pattern of data, examines the risks associated with the data, discovers the functional dependencies of the data and analyses the challenge to the data-sensitive process. Data profiling assists in clarifying the data structure and its relationship with the overall business requirements. Data profiling uses minimum, maximum, mean, median, mode, percentile, and other such calculations to discover any anomalies and varying values. Data profiling also improves the data quality, shortens the implementation cycle and improves data understanding. The analysis of data in the production systems helps get a clear picture of the data consistency in an enterprise application. The analysis of data in the production system for each category and format is segregated in the test data to set up rules for data routing for each type of data in the software application. Data analysis enhances a better understanding of the data characteristics at each stage of data processing in the application.
DATA COMPLIANCE AND SECURITY
The amount of data managed in an organization’s database is tremendous and will only multiply in the future. Moreover, IT environments are becoming increasingly complex and require more data for testing. To define and classify the sensitive data and understand the flow of application data across the other applications and databases, the data compliance and security application is essential in an information-sensitive environment or industry. The data compliance and security application prevent private and sensitive data from being breached. Every industry and department needs to adhere to various compliances and secure data at each level of hierarchy in an organization, for the data flow of an application.
Best Test Data Management Software 2022
Analysts 
DATPROF products are uniquely position due to their ease of use. We try to simplify the challenging issues of test data management. But we've managed to make test data easily accessible. This in combination with the different modules that is delivered by DATPROF makes it possible to really get representative test data for software development purposes.
The goal is not to only make your test data compliant with data protection regulations, our goal is to make test data simplified in every single way. So discover your test data, get test data compliant, generate the right set and size of test data and get your test data quickly and rapidly.
In the end this is all combined in an attractive and competitive pricing model that fits organizations from medium to large.
The SAP Test Data Migration Server provides high-speed test data management and migration software which is capable of transferring related and ideal business information from the SAP production system to development, assessment, quality guarantee, or training systems – fast and cost-efficiently. The SAP Test Data Migration Server helps organizations reduce infrastructure cost as well as space and expenses from non-productive processes.
HP Test Data Management software is a lithe, influential resolution intended to reduce delays and costs related with data-driven testing. This is enabled by accelerating test data preparation using automatic data mining and masking.
Doble provides very comprehensive solution for the test data management and has developed a number of data-focused solutions to help remove physical and jobless work processes allowing the user to regulate the collection, storage and organization of quality test data. It standardize the testing process and respective data management which is time efficient and simple.
The Capgemini and Sogeti Test Data Management service provides solutions for key testing challenges. It minimizes the overall cost of testing software by using subsets of the data that can be used again for the test. It also ensures that the quality of the testing does not deteriorate. The service ensures that testing is undertaken for all the possible risks and test cases. The benefits of data masking are also offered along with this service.
SQS known as Expleo works as strategic partner for its clients and helps them to create a better quality environment in which all the features of products, systems and processes are mentioned. It also helps in redefining the quality management process, methods and SOP’s and provide the certification. Expertise in formulating a quality management strategy and bring independent, third party governance that mitigates risk.
Actifio software delivers an accessible, enterprise-grade Copy Data Management (CDM) solution for very large databases. It enables database copies proficiently and strongly in any public cloud or on-premises using any storage. It eases the DBA load, upsurging efficiency and helping concentrate on business-oriented tasks that are of greater importance.
TDMaxim enables test data management practices and Informatica’s TDM software with the finest practices, and determining, subsetting, and concealing subtle test data. Demanding reusability of test data enables TDMaxim lessen test data provisioning times by approximately 95% and overall test cycle time by 33%.
Wipro’s On Demand Test Environment generates endwise testing abilities built on business requirements, strict performance, and SLA requirements. The solution comprises infra sizing and app profiling, Test Data Management, Non-functional validation and monitoring, promising clients of condensed implementation time, and structure flexibility.
The platform created by GenRocket generates Real-Time Synthetic Test Data based on the users’ complex data models. This test data is complete, highly accurate, representative, and highly secured in high volume and on demand. Synthetic Test Data is better than Production Test Data and the engine provides it 100% quicker than traditional Test Data, at 10% of the cost of a Conventional TDM. It is easy to learn, integrate, operate, and adapt.
The test data management solution works as a shield for highly sensitive data used for testing purposes. It prevents jeopardizing data cycles. The test data management solution addresses: Simulating real user interaction with the application, simulating exceptional scenarios, and generating real-time load on the system during non-functional testing.
Zephyr Standalone is a strong test data management software which is autonomously outside the Atlassian ecosystem. The solution provides real-time Jira Integration. It transforms the organization’s procedures to produce high-quality software. The solution helps organizations take decisions globally by using real-time integrated data. Some of the basic benefits offered are - getting to the market faster, reducing risk, accelerating time to revenue, and future-proof test management investment. Measuring, analyzing, sharing, and elevating visibility across the organization are some of the features of the solution.
DEM provides a combined platform for gathering, storing, querying, and analyzing a significant amount of data of the body-worn camera through which the user can build a significantly large data management system. Detailed analysis of the data helps users understand trends and the manner in which the data is distributed (normal or asymmetrical) on the basis of the volume of data.
PremierOne Records streamlines the apprehension, storing, safeguarding, and holding of operational and other technical data with a single source for advanced safety, analytics, and information sharing. It generates additional custom modules without the need for significant expenditure or upgrade charges. It easily modifies data entry to match business procedures, resulting in retrievable, accessible, and sharable data across various agencies and jurisdictions.
