Development, testing, acceptance and production (DTAP)
is a phased approach to
software testing
Software testing is the act of examining the artifacts and the behavior of the software under test by validation and verification. Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to apprecia ...
and
deployment
Deployment may refer to:
Engineering and software Concepts
* Blue-green deployment, a method of installing changes to a web, app, or database server by swapping alternating production and staging servers
* Continuous deployment, a software e ...
. The four letters in DTAP denote the following common steps:
# Development: The program or component is developed on a development system. This
development environment
In software deployment, an environment or tier is a computer system or set of systems in which a computer program or software component is deployed and executed. In simple cases, such as developing and immediately executing a program on the same m ...
might have no testing capabilities.
# Testing: Once the
software developer thinks it is ready, the product is copied to a test environment, to verify it works as expected. This test environment is supposedly standardized and in close alignment with the target environment.
# Acceptance: If the test is successful, the product is copied to an acceptance test environment. During the
Acceptance test
In engineering and its various subdisciplines, acceptance testing is a test conducted to determine if the requirements of a specification or contract are met. It may involve chemical tests, physical tests, or performance tests.
In systems eng ...
, the customer will test the product in this environment to verify whether it meets their expectations.
# Production: If the customer accepts the product, it is deployed to a production environment, making it available to all users of the system.
The set of environments used for a DTAP cycle is often called a DTAP street.
The set of environments can be smaller or larger, depending on the demands of the project. Examples of other steps are:
# Education – This extension of the DTAP-street is a training environment for the users of the production environment.
# Backup – The
Backup site
A backup site or work area recovery site is a location where an organization can relocate following a disaster, such as fire, flood, terrorist threat or other disruptive event. This is an integral part of the disaster recovery plan and wider busine ...
is used for
Disaster recovery.
Though the methodology is called DTAP, some projects might use DTAPB, DTP, DTEP or any other variant addressing the project needs.
See also
*
Continuous delivery
Continuous delivery (CD) is a software engineering approach in which teams produce software in short cycles, ensuring that the software can be reliably released at any time and, following a pipeline through a "production-like environment", withou ...
*
Deployment environment
In software deployment, an environment or tier is a computer system or set of systems in which a computer program or software component is deployed and executed. In simple cases, such as developing and immediately executing a program on the sam ...
*
Release management
Release management is the process of managing, planning, scheduling and controlling a software build through different stages and environments; it includes testing and deploying software releases.
Relationship with processes
Organizations that ...
*
Software testing
Software testing is the act of examining the artifacts and the behavior of the software under test by validation and verification. Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to apprecia ...
References
{{Reflist
Software development process