Tag Archives: Automation

How Redgate’s Test Data Manager Can Enhance Automated Testing

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A brief overview of the benefits and challenges of automated testing and how Redgate’s Test Data Manager can help.


Automated testing uses software tools to execute predefined tests on a software application, system, or platform. Automated testing can help developers and testers verify their products’ functionality, performance, security, and usability and identify and fix bugs faster and more efficiently. Automated testing can reduce manual testing costs and time, improve software quality and reliability, and enable continuous integration and delivery.

However, automated testing is not a silver bullet that can solve all software development problems. Automated testing also has some limitations and challenges, such as:

  • It requires a significant upfront investment in developing, maintaining, and updating the test scripts and tools.
  • It cannot replace human judgment and creativity in finding and exploring complex or unexpected scenarios.
  • It may not cover all the possible test and edge cases, especially for dynamic and interactive applications.
  • It may generate false positives or negatives, depending on the quality and accuracy of the test scripts and tools.

One of the critical challenges of automated testing is to ensure that the test data used for the test scripts are realistic, relevant, and reliable. Test data are the inputs and outputs of the test scripts, and they can significantly impact the outcome and validity of the test results. Test data can be sourced from various sources, such as production, synthetic, or test data generators. However, each source has advantages and disadvantages, and none can guarantee the optimal quality and quantity of test data for every test scenario.

That’s why Redgate Test Data Manager from Redgate is a valuable tool for automated testing. Test Data Manager is a software solution that helps developers and testers create, manage, and provision test data for automated testing. Test Data Manager can help to:

  • Create realistic and relevant test data based on the application’s data model and business rules.
  • Manage and update test data across different environments and platforms.
  • Provision test data on demand, in the proper format and size, for the test scripts.
  • Protect sensitive and confidential data by masking or anonymizing them.
  • Optimize test data usage and storage by deleting or archiving obsolete or redundant data.

By using TDM, developers and testers can enhance the quality and efficiency of automated testing, as well as the security and compliance of test data. TDM can help reduce the risk of test failures, errors, and delays and increase confidence and trust in the test results. TDM can also help save time and money by reducing the dependency on manual processes and interventions and maximizing the reuse and value of test data.

Automated testing is an essential and beneficial practice for software development, but it has some challenges and limitations. Test data management is one of the critical factors that can influence the success and effectiveness of automated testing. Using a tool like TDM from Redgate, developers and testers can create, manage, and provision test data for automated testing more efficiently, reliably, and securely.

PowerShell Tactics

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Last months T-SQL Tuesday party dealt with PowerShell. I debated on whether or not to post a topic, but in the end I didn’t feel like I should post something that I had not really ever tried before so I spent a few weeks going through some basic power shell scripting and what I ended up with was a way to check my databases from a list of servers I have contained in a text file; along with retrieving failed job history based on the same server listing.

I was impressed enough that I started to use some of this technology on my on-call days where I have automated reports dumped out into excel waiting for me when I get in for review.

While there are many variations of this out there I researched and then put some of my own twists into it when creating the scripts; I only plan today to show one that I use the SMO assembly to retrieve basic database information.

The Script

First I want to open excel:

#Create a new Excel object using COM
$Excel = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application
$Excel.visible = $True
$Excel = $Excel.Workbooks.Add()
$Sheet = $Excel.Worksheets.Item(1)

Now that excel is open I can begin to retrieve the list of databases from the text file and create all the header information:

#Counter variable for rows
$intRow = 1

#Read thru the contents of the SQL_Servers.txt file
foreach ($instance in get-content “C:\Server\Servers.txt”)
{

#Create column headers
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow,1) = “INSTANCE NAME:”
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow,2) = $instance
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow,1).Font.Bold = $True
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow,2).Font.Bold = $True

$intRow++

$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow,1) = “DATABASE NAME”
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow,2) = “OWNER”
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow,3) = “AUTOSHRINK”
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow,4) = “RECOVERY MODEL”
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow,5) = “LAST DATABASE BACKUP”
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow,6) = “SIZE (MB)”
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow,7) = “SPACE AVAILABLE (MB)”

#Format the column headers
for ($col = 1; $col –le 7; $col++)
{
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow,$col).Font.Bold = $True
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow,$col).Interior.ColorIndex = 48
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow,$col).Font.ColorIndex = 34
}

$intRow++

Now the fun part; time to get all the information and watch your excel file go:

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName(‘Microsoft.SqlServer.SMO’) | out-null

# Create an SMO connection to the instance
$s = New-Object (‘Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server’) $instance

$dbs = $s.Databases

#$dbs | SELECT Name, Owner, AutoShrink, RecoveryModel, Last Database Backup, Size, SpaceAvailable

#Formatting using Excel

ForEach ($db in $dbs)
{

#Divide the value of SpaceAvailable by 1KB
$dbSpaceAvailable = $db.SpaceAvailable/1KB

#Format the results to a number with three decimal places
$dbSpaceAvailable = “{0:N3}” -f $dbSpaceAvailable

$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 1) = $db.Name
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 2) = $db.Owner

#Change the background color of the Cell depending on the AutoShrink property value
if ($db.AutoShrink -eq “True”)
{
$fgColor = 3
}
else
{
$fgColor = 0
}

$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 3) = $db.AutoShrink
$Sheet.Cells.item($intRow, 3).Interior.ColorIndex = $fgColor
if ($db.RecoveryModel -eq “1”)
{
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 4) = “FULL”
}
elseif ($db.RecoveryModel -eq “3”)
{
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 4) = “SIMPLE”
}
elseif ($db.RecoveryModel -eq “2”)
{
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 4) = “BULK-LOGGED”
}
if ($db.LastBackupDate -eq “12:00:00 AM”)
{
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 5) = “Never”
}
else
{
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 5) = $db.LastBackupDate
}
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 6) = “{0:N3}” -f $db.Size

#Change the background color of the Cell depending on the SpaceAvailable property value
if ($dbSpaceAvailable -lt 1.00)
{
$fgColor = 3
}
else
{
$fgColor = 0
}

$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 7) = $dbSpaceAvailable
$Sheet.Cells.item($intRow, 7).Interior.ColorIndex = $fgColor

$intRow ++

}

$intRow ++

}

$Sheet.UsedRange.EntireColumn.AutoFit()
cls

Conclusion:

I added and removed some various objects in the information I was pulling back. There are a lot of great topics out there that show you what the objects are and many various books that provide the syntax in order to accomplish many things utilizing PowerShell.

I was not happy to miss the party last month but going through the exercise of diving in and doing some things with PowerShell I am glad I did. I look forward to doing some more involved work with it as I move forward in the future ~ I’ve only begun to scratch the surface!