Software development and testing is a resource-intensive activity with continually fluctuating workloads. Within many enterprises, a significant part of the installed IT infrastructure is dedicated to application development, testing and staging operations for in-house line of business applications. Unfortunately, despite the significant investment made in this infrastructure, the inability to quickly provide development and testing teams the capacity they need frequently causes delays throughout the development lifecycle as well as negatively impacts software quality and costs.
An agile Dev and Test environment is crucial for ensuring your code is ready for prime time — but it can be costly and complex to create and manage your own development, staging, and production environments. Companies are looking for more smarter ways to create software applications and set up environments for distributed development and testing teams. With Microsoft Azure, you can develop and test applications faster, at reduced cost, and with the flexibility to deploy in the cloud or on-premises.
Fitting Dev and Test into the Cloud
There are two key drivers why the software development process is a great fit for cloud computing:
- The intrinsic nature of complex software development, which demands a lot of resources for short bursts of time.
- The rapid growth of Agile development methodologies, which leads to a continuous delivery model with increased number of build/test/deploy cycles – often several times per week.
Benefits of extending Dev and Test to Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines:
Reduced CAPEX and OPEX
With Azure, organizations can quickly spin up environments based on requirements and scale down environments when demand ebbs, paying only for what they consume. Teams will have access to the latest development and testing tools, can eliminate unnecessary CAPEX to buy infrastructure and software that is required only for sporadic use or to meet demand peaks while often remaining idle during periods of low demand.
By not owning the IT infrastructure, organizations also cut infrastructure maintenance, personnel and support costs, which reduces OPEX.
Create a development and test sandbox in minutes
With Azure, you can rapidly self-provision as many virtual machines as you need for your application development and testing in the cloud without waiting for hardware, procurement or internal processes. Access your new development and test environment from any PC at work, at home or in any internet connected location around the world.
Script for even faster deployment
With Azure, you can create repeatable development and test environments using scripting. Fully automate the creation of multiple virtual configurations including Virtual Machines and Virtual Network using PowerShell scripts that automatically create and link all the necessary resources. Stop and start virtual machines to optimize costs.
Test Load or Scalability
Quickly configure massively scalable load tests without affecting your production applications. Test, multiple scale-up and scale-out configurations to ensure your application is ready for customer usage.
Flexibility to deploy on-premises or in the cloud
Azure offers the flexibility to develop and test your applications and then choose where to deploy them. You can go into production on Azure, or export your virtual machine and go live on-premises or with a hosting provider. The choice is yours.
Focus on the application, not the infrastructure
Moving to Azure frees teams from maintenance and troubleshooting activities, enabling them to focus more on IT strategies to drive business.
