“The need for speed.” We’ve all heard this expression and it applies to the digital age more now than ever. To stay competitive, companies must move quickly or get out of the fast lane. How do you do that in the mainframe world, though? With the right tools.

BMC AMI DevX Total Test is one such tool, enabling developers to automatically create test cases in a virtualized or non-virtualized environment, which significantly reduces the time developers spend on manually testing. As companies move to a shift-left testing approach, catching defects early and testing often significantly reduces cost. Topaz for Total Test’s Eclipse-based integrated development environment (IDE) allows users of all experience levels to quickly create and maintain test cases which can then be used for quality assurance (QA) testing or put into a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline and automatically run as a regression test.

Virtualized testing is a process where developers can automatically create a test case using a BMC AMI DevX Code Debug debug session. The test case becomes “virtualized” because Topaz for Total Test creates stubs for all external files or environmental connections. When you run the test case, the program runs without the need for live input files or other dependencies. These inputs are replaced with automatically generated stubs, which takes the guesswork out of knowing whether you had the right input files or a corrupted database so you can focus on the main program for which you made the code change.

Non-virtualized testing is the process of running your program in a live environment. Developers can simulate, with a repeatable test, how the program will react in a realistic environment. The non-virtualized testing approach is ideal for ensuring all dependencies to the program are working correctly. BMC provides a palette of non-virtualized testing options to help developers integrate Topaz for Total Test with tools such as BMC AMI DevX File-AID and BMC AMI DevX Performance Test. For our October 2021 release, we have delivered PL/I support for non-virtualized testing in Topaz for Total Test so developers can create repeatable test cases for their PL/I programs.

Both approaches allow developers the ability to increase velocity and productivity by testing automatically instead of manually. Having a good regression suite of test cases can help catch bugs early, where they are less impactful to the business. As customers move to a shift-left approach to testing, BMC AMI DevX Total Test gives developers the capability to reduce the time it takes to create a test manually, reducing bugs by automatically creating more test cases. All of this reduces time-to-market for code changes, which equates to cost savings for your organization. Read the blog post, “Speed Mainframe Delivery Without Compromising Quality” to learn more about new features in our October 2021 release which enhance shift-left testing.

Exciting news for legacy BMC AMI DevX Performance Test mainframe users who want to use BMC AMI DevX Total Test to automate running of scripts and perform result analysis. A new Performance Test playback palette element has been added that will allow you to launch your Performance Test scripts.

How it works

The new BMC AMI DevX Performance Test playback element allows users to specify the JCL that executes the VTAM script inside the scenario. Once the scenario is executed, the element will gather the results from the mainframe and display them in the BMC AMI DevX Total Test Assertions Failure.

The results are broken into Compare Screen, Journal Screen, Summary Reports, Submitted JCL, and Job Output. The Compare tab and Journal tab will be especially interesting to developers. The Compare tab shows which screens were executed in the script and the expected and actual values. You can also sort on only the failures. The Journal tab shows the output field and the output with input fields. If you are testing whether someone entered a user ID, the first screen will show a blank entry for the ID and the second screen will show the ID filled in. This is so you can test each screen playback to see where something went wrong. The Performance Test playback element can be launched from the CLI in your Jenkins pipeline.

The second new palette element is the REST service. This element can also be added to a scenario to execute a REST service. What is the use case? Some customers have asked for the ability to pre-load their IBM^® Db2^® tables before launching a test scenario. The REST service element will allow users to specify data before launching the scenario. You can also use the REST element for negative testing of a bad return code. This will ensure the REST API is thoroughly tested.

These two additional palette items will allow our customers to further advance their testing capabilities. BMC AMI DevX Total Test is excited to bring new features to you each quarter; be sure to check our October 2021 release for additional features that will further enhance your shift left.