To be most effective, test environments need to either mirror the production environment or connect to it. Mirroring it is excessive and costly – connecting to it has security risks and bandwidth loading implications. Load or variable demand testing without a production-like environment will not guarantee reliable results, because it is difficult to assess how an application is affected by network latency, storage throughput, and other issues. The Cloud environment allows for test groups to create a full-scale, temporary test environment to mirror a Cloud production environment, then releases those resources once testing is completed. This provides a cost-effective method of providing true-to-life testing and evaluation.

Using a Cloud Computing environment allows an agency to obtain an environment that will allow test teams to quickly gain access to IT resources on a per project or testing cycle basis. The test environment can be created from new or previously defined images of a production system. The test environment can be created to mimic specific production environments to mimic actual deployment of the application for more complete identification of any errors, bugs, or problems. Upon completion of the testing cycle, the entire test environment can be rapidly decommissioned, eliminating its continuing cost until the environment is needed again.