High-performing development teams are always looking for ways to improve. So you may be asking yourself, “How can I help my teams improve application performance and reliability?” One way is with BMC AMI DevX Performance Test, a tool that helps development teams find and fix defects faster and improve the performance of their applications.

Traditionally, code changes weren’t tested until near the end of a project—that is too late. Testing of changes to your application code needs to be done earlier in the development cycle and more frequently. Automating test cases allows issues to be resolved closer to when they are created, when they are easier and less costly to find and fix.

How does a team “shift left” testing so that it is done earlier in the development cycle? Let’s say you need to test your order processing application. To start, individual test cases are recorded for a specific function. For example, one test case tests displaying a customer’s order history, another provides details of a selected order, and another tests change details of the order. These can be run individually while making changes in your code. The recorded scripts can also be used in BMC AMI DevX Total Test to provide expanded testing scenarios.

Combining individual scripts into an automated testing vehicle (ATV) provides greater capabilities. An ATV is a project environment that contains several individual test cases that collectively address a defined regression or performance testing requirement. Adding the required testing elements to an ATV playlist simplifies the management of that test project. The three individual test cases mentioned earlier, taken together, address the wider scope requirements of testing the order process.

If BMC AMI Strobe and/or BMC AMI iStrobe are available, you can obtain application performance results. The performance vehicle will automatically attempt to execute a Strobe measurement session and profile report. If you do not have Strobe or iStrobe installed or available, no reporting will occur.

While the ATV automation on its own is valuable, even greater value comes when you combine running your ATV playlists with a continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline like Jenkins, GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps. This automation can be orchestrated to run any time code is changed or promoted.

Automated testing gives your teams significant gains in speed, quality, and consistency versus time-consuming manual testing. While it may require a higher initial cost, once in place, automated testing allows developers the time to focus on more important things, like development that supports your business requirements, with the payoff that you can complete development on time and with higher quality.

Listen to Kevin and colleagues discuss the benefits of shift left and how to get started with automated testing in the podcast, “Ten Steps to Effective Mainframe Testing.”

When I was growing up, my father always reminded me to make sure I had a good set of tools. In fact, he bought my first toolbox, filled with various tools to handle a variety of tasks. I still have it. Of course, tools have improved over the years, so I upgrade them from time to time. Having the right set of tools for managing your test data is just as important. The recent releases of BMC AMI DevX File-AID and BMC AMI DevX Data Studio contain all the tools you need for building out the test data required for all aspects of application testing.

The purpose of every application is to process the data that is required by the business, and today’s applications and associated data are more complex than ever. The requirements for test data are more diverse because application data resides on multiple platforms and in different formats. The challenge is to be sure the right data is easily and readily available for each stage of development and testing. A lack of good test data can easily become a bottleneck in the DevOps workflow, so good test data management practices are a must. File-AID and Topaz for Enterprise Data help you manage your test data by making it easy to:

• Manage data across platforms—Both solutions provide the same user experience to manage data across the enterprise, whether the data resides on the mainframe or in a database on a distributed server. File-AID enables you to create relationally intact sets of data that represent a subset of the real data and mirror the conditions found in production data.
• Edit—In most cases, your test data will need to be continuously enhanced to build out missing or new conditions that didn’t exist in the original subset. File-AID’s modern editor interface makes it easy to edit all types of z/OS files, IMS databases, Db2 tables, Oracle tables, SQL servers, and more, all with a consistent look and feel.
• Repeat—Agile development requires that your testing be repeatable. Test data environments can quickly be provisioned with a refresh of the original test data, ensuring your application testing begins with the same base set of data. Better yet, these steps can be automated as part of your DevOps toolchain.
• Automate—Almost 30 powerful batch functions such as compare, copy, and update allow you to evaluate data as it flows through your batch processing and correct any errors or invalid conditions before they can cause failure.
• Reformat—Making changes to your file that require the addition of a field? The File-AID reformat function can map an old layout to a new layout and copy the data to the new file.
• Compare—File-AID and Topaz for Enterprise Date have robust compare features that allow you to do things like compare files on two different logical partitions (LPARs).

These are just some of the tools BMC AMI DevX File-AID and BMC AMI DevX Data Studiohave to offer. Rest assured that when you open either solution’s toolbox, you will find the right tool to get the job done and keep your development process running smoothly.

So, what’s in your toolbox? If it isn’t BMC AMI DevX File-AID, now is the time to look at making a change. You can learn more about its features and benefits on the File-AID product page. If you are currently using BMC AMI DevX File-AID, you can take advantage of the latest tool updates by installing File-AID V21.1.