To really test what you are doing and to do analysis in your local environment you probably need a DataSHIELD VM. This can be set up to look and behave just like a real DataSHIELD instance would that is hosted somewhere with real data. 

There are a few approaches to get to this goal:

• Grab one of our pre-built VMs.
• Build the whole thing from scratch with Vagrant.
• Install the software on an existing VM with Puppet.
• Install the software on an existing VM manually.
• Use containers.

All of our continuous integration is based on the Vagrant install, so that is a good option.