The ideal VPS test environment

Any self-respecting developer or engineer can not escape testing developed projects and products before they can be presented to the outside world. You will never get a second chance for a good (flawless!) First impression. For online projects you can use a VPS as a test environment. Argeweb VPS hosting provided by hosting provider Argeweb for example offers you that possibility. Below we give you some tips and tricks to take care of this as well as possible.

Snapshots and version management

Use version management to develop your project and make regular snapshots during project testing. In this way you can always easily return to an earlier version that works if something has gone wrong during development. The most popular version management tools at the moment are GitHub and Bitbucket .

Identical environments

The most important thing to look out for when setting up the test environment is that it is set up in exactly the same way as the final live environment. All software and settings must be identical on both servers. If you do not, you run the risk that your project runs on the test environment like a sun, but still has errors on the live environment, because the project is not compatible with the live device.

Extra servers

Because both environments have to be identical, it is advisable to use two identical Linux or Windows servers : one for testing and one for going live. If, for example, you have generated a firm bug in an update of your project that causes the server to stop responding, this will, in any case, have no effect on the live environment, which can simply continue to run stably.
In addition, it is advisable to use an extra server as a backup server. Here you can periodically save backups of the system and the database. If there is something wrong with the test or live server, you have at least one version of the system that you can roll out on the server once it has been restored.

How can VLAN help you with this?

Although it is not advisable to connect a production server to a test server for safety reasons, it is of course useful to link two virtual servers for backup purposes. A virtual private network (VLAN) offers the solution. It is advisable to use the same operating system on both virtual servers; By using different operating systems, setting up these servers becomes unnecessarily complex.

First of all you will have to create a new VLAN in your control panel. You can then add the virtual servers and configure them manually. How this works exactly depends on the operating system you use on these servers.It is very important for developers and engineers to have a good, reliable test environment. The VPS solutions from Argeweb offer this environment.