Unlocking Data for the Enterprise – Making Data a Strength

Testing is the new constant in financial services. The applications on which firms depend must be tested for penetration, for capacity, for new integrations and new regulations, as well as every change in coding. And every test requires the use of data. However, while the adoption of more rapid software development and deployment techniques is a major focus, appropriate management of non-production data has been left behind. • • • • 54% say integrated data sources is their top challenge for test data (p.7) 42% say no consistent way data is managed for QA and testing (pp.5-6) Just 17% say all sensitive data is anonymized and continually refreshed (p.10) 67% of data masking is outside of centralised control, creating risk (p.11) It seems that all too often for most financial services firms, the data that will be used in the SDLC, including testing, is an afterthought. Delphix commissioned QA Vector® Research to undertake a study of the challenges that financial services firms face in software development and maintenance, and the role that the management of data, particularly for quality assurance and testing, plays in facilitating those journeys. In-depth interviews with senior individuals took place in April and May 2018 to explore this. The conversation took a top-down approach to identify points of pain in implementing and maintaining software. This paper identifies the issues and proposes strategies for solutions. “In the grand scheme of things, investment in data management has less priority than other issues. There are so many problems, and test data management may not be seen as one of the enablers of managing better quality in the beginning.” Director/Senior Manager, DevOps, Global bank 4 ©2018 QA Vector® Research