Managing domains

Domains and environments explained

A domain represents a logical grouping of related systems that are part of a real business project and it is the basic unit of management within HCL DevOps Test Virtualization (Test Virtualization). It might be served by one or more HCL DevOps Test Integrations and APIs (Test Integrations and APIs) or Test Virtualization projects, depending on how large or small the domain is, and how many Test Integrations and APIs or Test Virtualization users are working on it.

It is usual for a service or other endpoint to appear in more than one domain because it is reused by different business projects in different contexts. Thus, a domain is used as a means to group and manage assets in Test Virtualization Control Panel. For example, unique business groups within an organization may want to manage stubs independently from each other.

Stubs created in Test Virtualization are published into domains, and agents and proxies can be restricted so that they accept instructions only from stubs running in particular domains.

Thus, after stubs have been published to Test Virtualization Control Panel, they can be started and stopped by using Test Virtualization Control Panel, and the routing of messages (to stubs or live systems) can be controlled at domain level.

A domain can contain one or more environments. In Test Integrations and APIs and Test Virtualization, an environment enables users to define groups of variables or tags that can be used in both tests and in transport definitions.

Typically, environments are used to create configurations for different parts of a software product development workflow, for example, development, quality assurance, user acceptance testing, and so on.

Environments are not created directly within Test Virtualization Control Panel. Instead, they are created automatically when stubs are published from Test Virtualization (because stubs are published into an environment within a domain) or when an Test Integrations and APIs Proxy or Agent registers with Test Virtualization Control Panel specifying an environment name.

The following topics describe how to create, modify, and delete domains.

Create domains

A domain can be created by using any of the following methods:

• An initial domain can be (optionally) created during installation of Test Virtualization Control Panel.
• Manually by using the Test Virtualization Control Panel application (if you are an administrator).
• Manually by using the Test Integrations and APIs application. (In Test Integrations and APIs, whenever you are asked to select a domain, you have option to create a new domain if you license enables you to create additional domains.)
• When an Test Integrations and APIs Proxy registers with a specific Test Virtualization Control Panel instance using a domain that does not already exist in that instance.

The following topics describe how to use Test Virtualization Control Panel and Test Integrations and APIs to create domains.