T12 Thursday, May 18, 2006 1:30PM A UTOMATED S ETUP AND T EAR D OWN - - PDF document

BIO PRESENTATION

International Conference On Software Testing Analysis and Review May 15-19, 2006 Orlando, Florida USA

T12

Thursday, May 18, 2006 1:30PM

AUTOMATED SETUP AND TEAR DOWN OF COMPLEX, MULTI-TIER TEST CONFIGURATIONS

James Phillips Akimbi Systems

James Phillips

James Phillips brings more than 20 years of software industry experience to Akimbi Systems, which he co-founded in 2004. Prior to founding Akimbi, James was senior vice president of products and marketing at Actional Corporation (acquired by Progress Software) the pioneering leader in the service-oriented systems management software

• category. Previously, James was vice president of business development and product

marketing at Ensim Corporation, where he successfully commercialized the company's technology assets. James has held leadership positions in software engineering, product management, business development and marketing management at Intel, Synopsys, Intuit, Central Point Software and Fifth Generation Systems. He is a popular speaker and writer, and has been featured in a number of industry conferences and publications. James holds a BS in mathematics and earned his MBA, with honors, from the University

• f Chicago.

T 12

Automated Setup and Tear Down of Complex, Multi-tier Test Configurations

James Phillips, Akimbi

Enterprise Software Architecture Evolution

Monolithic Client-server 3-tier, n-tier Service-oriented

Resulting Challenges for QA organizations

• Server Sprawl

– 2-3 machines in application development and test for every server in production (+ storage, networking …) – Server to Staff Ratios exceed 7:1 in some cases

• Setup and Provisioning Overhead

– Repetitive system setup tasks overwhelming IT and slowing software development cycles – Accounts for more than 50% of time expended in the development and test cycle

• Costly System Failures

– Difficult to reproduce and resolve software defects before production deployment

Gaps have opened in test automation solution continuum

design develop test deploy support

development architecture QA data center

• perations

application support

IBM Rational Rose Mercury TestDirector Mercury QTP

defects can’t be reproduced (interop and proximity)

• ut-of-context unit testing

manual test system configuration

Visual Studio JUnit Merant PVCS Serena TeamTrack

design develop test deploy support

A virtual lab automation system integrates with existing processes and solutions, filling the gaps

development architecture QA data center

• perations

application support

IBM Rational Rose Merant PVCS Serena TeamTrack Mercury TestDirector Visual Studio JUnit Mercury QTP VLA system VLA system VLA system

Virtual Lab Automation – Shared Resource Pool, Automated Provisioning

Central QA Support in Bangalore, India Equity Capital Markets Trading System Developers in New Jersey Fixed Income Analytics System Developer in New York

Akimbi Slingshot Configuration Library

(grouped machine images)

Servers are Provisioned From Library Shared pool of servers, storage and networking resources

Virtual Lab Automation – Architecture

Virtualized Server Pool VLA Server Image Storage Library

CIM Application Developer CIM Application Developer FP&A Application Developer QA Automation Engineer New Jersey Dev Facility Walldorf Dev Facility Bangalore Outsource Partner

VLA System Users

Vancouver Data Center

Self-service, instant “check out” from library

Automated Virtual Lab

Virtualized Server Pool Akimbi Slingshot Server

1

Image Storage Library

2

Application Developer Walldorf Dev Facility

3

Effortless capture of configurations to the library

Automated Virtual Lab

Virtualized Server Pool Akimbi Slingshot Server

1

Image Storage Library

2

Application Developer Walldorf Dev Facility

3

Before Testing – QA creates and snapshots test case configurations

test server control akimbi control virtual test servers

Test Lab in Palo Alto QA engineer

• 1. Create from scratch
• 2. Clone existing snapshot
• 3. Clone partial snapshot

QA engineer creates test case configurations: Servers, OS, Data, Application

2

Snapshots saved – single virtual test server or a bundle of servers for management as a unit.

1

Testing – Existing test tools provision test configurations using VLA Akimbi Snapshot

virtual test servers 3 tier test configuration

reanimate test servers: server-OS-app elapsed time for snapshot, clone and reanimation measured in seconds

Testing – Automated test executes as usual

virtual test servers 3 tier test configuration

t e s t i n p u t s a n d r e s u l t s

Test success - Configuration is removed in preparation for next iteration

delete test servers

Test anomaly - Snapshot, create bug report and continue testing

virtual test servers

1 2

anomaly detected “create snapshot” command

3

snapshot taken and stored

4

problem report created with snapshot links

Debugging – Step 1: Developer receives bug report and clicks to restore environment

4

test server control reanimated virtual test servers

Test Lab

Test Lab in Palo Alto Developer in Austin

Bug report arrives to assigned developer Developer clicks to reanimate test configuration – before or after the anomaly was detected

2 1

Test server configuration reanimated (following physical cues)

3

Debugging – Step 2: Developer debugs in exact environment in which bug occurred

test server control akimbi control remote connections virtual test servers 3 tier test configuration

Test Lab

Test Lab in Palo Alto Developer in Austin

Virtual Lab Automation - Benefits

Akimbi Slingshot Capability Customer Benefit

Pool and share server, networking, storage and other resources between software development, and test teams and individuals Automatically and rapidly set up and tear down complex, multi-machine software configurations for use in development and test Give every developer or test engineer the equivalent of their own fully-equipped data center with dedicated provisioning staff Maintain a comprehensive library of customer and production system environments Suspend and capture “ live” multi-machine configurations to a shared library Efficiently move configurations between development and test facilities

• Reduce equipment-related capital and operating expenditures
• Accelerate functional testing
• Shave man-weeks or months off every software development project
• Increase the number of certified deployment configurations supported

by new software systems

• Find and fix more bugs, earlier in the software development lifecycle
• Enable “ real world” unit testing
• Slash time and energy wasted begging, stealing, re-configuring and

protecting hoarded servers, storage and networking equipment

• Eliminate upgrade breakage
• Deliver better support users of a software system
• Rapidly troubleshoot customer production problems
• Reproduce bugs reliably and reduce time spent in the debug phase
• Reduce the number of latent software defects that slip into production
• Increase communication and productivity across distributed software

development teams

• Enable confident and efficient outsourcing of software development and

test activities

Leading organizations in deployment

Akimbi Systems 1400 Fashion Island Blvd. Suite 900 San Mateo, CA 94404 (650) 887-2204 fax James Phillips james@akimbi.com (650) 356-4401 direct (408) 832-3066 cell