Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Unleashed

Deploying Test Farms

Any production SharePoint environment should have a test environment in which new SharePoint web parts, solutions, service packs, patches, and add-ons can be tested. This applies to all organizations, regardless of size. It is critical to deploy test farms, because many SharePoint add-ons could potentially disrupt or corrupt the formatting or structure of a production environment, and trying to test these new solutions on site collections or different web applications is not enough because the solutions often install directly on the SharePoint servers themselves. If there is an issue, the issue will be reflected in the entire farm.

Because of these reasons, many organizations create a smaller SharePoint farm just for testing. ...