Building Automatic Test Environments

In the next set of articles, I would like to experiment with how to deploy automatic test environments, that later can be integrated into the build process. This article is going to be a bit out of the ordinary, as I’m going to use it as a plan, a table of content and a status board for experiment. Feel free to bookmark it and visit back to check on the progress. Alternatively, you can subscribe to email notifications on the blog update at the right side of the screen.

Goal

Develop process, to allow Jenkins to automatically deploy test environment, deploy the build on it and start a set of tests.

Creating test environment

1. Create a minimalistic Hyper-V based virtual machine as a base operating system.
   1. Download Windows 10 ISO to build Windows based virtual machine images
   2. Creating a Hyper-V Virtual Machine for Automatic Test Environments
   3. Installing Base Windows Image for Automated Test Environments
2. Cloning of the operating system in PowerShell, so that Jenkins can take over the process.
   1. Cloning the Virtual Machine
   2. Controlling the image creation from Jenkins
3. Creating virtual machine groups, so that a complex environment can be deployed as test environment.
   1. Provisioning groups of Virtual Machines with the help of Jenkins
4. Configuring Hyper-V virtual network, so that the test environment can be isolated and at the same time necessary machines provided access to allow manual checks on the product.
   1. Planning of how to assign IP addresses to the provisioned Virtual Machines
   2. Setting up Networking for the DHCP Server
   3. Installing the DHCP Server for the Test Environment

Provisioning roles for the virtual machines

1. How to install different roles on the virtual machines, so they can step into the functionality as they supposed to be in the test environment. For example, a database server.
2. Different roles

Automatic deployment of build results into the environment

1. Setting up test databases
2. Installing applications

Verifying results

1. Executing tests in the environment
2. Collecting results from the test environment

So far, this is my plan for the system to be built. Stay with me to find out how it will work. If you have any ideas on how each part could be accomplished, please share it in the comments.

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