{"id":53652,"date":"2026-06-24T10:08:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T09:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/?p=53652"},"modified":"2026-06-24T10:08:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T09:08:33","slug":"how-modern-test-data-management-is-removing-devops-bottlenecks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/2026\/06\/24\/how-modern-test-data-management-is-removing-devops-bottlenecks\/","title":{"rendered":"How modern test data management is removing DevOps bottlenecks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mario Melendez, Director Data Management and Analytics, AMN Healthcare, says modern DevOps tools and test data management practices are helping organisations accelerate software delivery while maintaining data privacy, compliance and production-like testing environments.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a traditional dilemma: non-production DevOps team members, such as developers and QA testers, need access to high-quality test data that is as production-like as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the time to provide them with data that meets privacy and compliance requirements has typically taken longer, running the risk of delayed software delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, my experience is that this need not be the case. Through test modernisation, best practices and modern DevOps tools, there need no longer be a trade-off between accessing high-quality data quickly and prioritising compliance and data privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our own results brought the time to stand up a test environment from days to just a couple of hours, while still meeting the rigorous compliance and privacy requirements that the healthcare industry understandably demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are other benefits too, such as greater developer autonomy, reduced workloads for database administrators (DBAs), smaller data footprints, reduced infrastructure and data storage costs and a more streamlined, agile DevOps working environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we dive into the details, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the critical role of realistic data in non-production environments. Teams need to run tests as close to real-world conditions as possible, meaning they need copies of data that feel as true to life as possible, without risking exposure of actual user information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A time-consuming process<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, creating non-production data for non-production users is conventionally a time-consuming, labour-intensive process for the database administrators (DBAs) supporting them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Refreshing data manually typically involves multiple people in an organisation and takes anywhere from five to seven days in my experience, including steps such as backing up data, copying it over, using manual conversion scripts to obfuscate sensitive data, restoring it and running through the refresh process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consequently, users lose valuable time waiting for their test data environments to be ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, such a manual-intensive process risks introducing human error, with data that lacks referential integrity across all test scenarios and is not sufficiently representative of production-like data. While that has been a situation that organisations the world over have put up with for some time, it no longer has to be that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer is to use modern DevOps tools and techniques, including data masking and virtualisation, to automate and reduce the time required to stand up a test data environment while ensuring that data is safe to release to users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A more modern approach<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The starting point is to identify what needs to be masked. One of the features within Perforce Delphix enables us to automate data profiling and masking by identifying sensitive data and applying masking algorithms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This removes manual effort and accelerates the process of standing up a test data environment, while still ensuring the data is safe to release to users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, once DBAs encapsulate the refresh portions of scripts into repeatable DevOps components, it becomes possible to create a self-service environment in which developers, QA testers or even business team members can request and refresh their own data environments on demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This gives them far more control, with copies of data that they can spin up, tear down or destroy. Also, DBAs spend less time responding to data requests and instead can focus their time and skills on other areas, such as security and optimisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another significant benefit is better control over referential integrity across the board. In the past, any attempt to implement end-to-end testing where data trickles from one system to the next would require inserting new transactions into each system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, the entire test data environment can be end-to-end instead of siloed. With modern DevOps tools like Delphix, the referential integrity of non-production data in system A is subsequently changed in systems B, C, D and E, supporting faster testing with fewer cycles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cost-effective and agile DevOps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subsequently, the entire DevOps pipeline becomes more agile and streamlined, without tests being a bottleneck: no more time waiting around for someone else and no more working within infrastructure constraints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vitally, data is production-like yet always secure, strengthening trust and compliance while PII is consistently protected across the SDLC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using virtualisation, storage is optimised and infrastructure costs are reduced. Whereas a 10Tb database used to take a couple of hours to back up, copy, restore and run processes to refresh, that time is now reduced to 45 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, the data footprint is much smaller because teams are working with richer but smaller data sets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Best practice advice<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For any organisation embarking on modernising test data management, I advise starting with a small application, but make sure it contains some PII so you can assess the key features that need protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Use virtualisation to gauge compression rates and data sizes and build a repeatable process. Once the team is familiar with that process, it is time to work with larger data sets that require referential integrity across applications that talk to each other and see how all that scales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Multiple KPIs can be considered \u2013 such as reduced refresh times \u2013 but always within the context of the beneficial impact on the DevOps SDLC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Testing and test data acquisition have long been viewed as the bottlenecks in the SDLC. However, through advances in DevOps, this no longer has to be the case, and test modernisation becomes an enabler of faster, safer and higher-quality software delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, developers and other non-production team members get better control over their own data destinies while freeing up DBAs\u2019 time for more rewarding work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mario Melendez, Director Data Management and Analytics, AMN Healthcare, says modern DevOps tools and test data management practices are helping organisations accelerate software delivery while maintaining data privacy, compliance and production-like testing environments. It is a traditional dilemma: non-production DevOps team members, such as developers and QA testers, need access to high-quality test data that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":53653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7925,26,39,43],"tags":[4182,12223,2014,5203,10221,9824,151,12228,12227,12224,10046,12229,12225,12226],"class_list":["post-53652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-expert-opinion","category-industry-expert","category-software","category-top-stories","tag-compliance","tag-data-masking","tag-data-privacy","tag-data-virtualization","tag-database-administrators","tag-developer-productivity","tag-devops","tag-perforce-delphix","tag-qa-testing","tag-sdlc","tag-software-delivery","tag-software-testing","tag-test-data-management","tag-test-modernisation"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53654,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53652\/revisions\/53654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}