Compuware Topaz for Total Test Fills Industry Gaps in Mainframe Automated Testing

Unit, Functional, Integration and Regression Testing Capabilities in a Single Product Enable Organizations to Deliver Higher-quality Applications Faster

• Topaz for Total Test now provides unit, functional, integration and regression testing, enabling application leaders to adopt a "shift left" approach to testing to improve application quality and development velocity and efficiency.
• Single user experience, shared test artifacts repositories, support for test driven development and a integration with XebiaLabs are among the new capabilities in Topaz for Total Test.
• A new 3270 emulator enables developers to complete one-off "green screen" tasks without leaving Topaz's familiar, intuitive Eclipse-based environment.
• Organizations no longer have to choose between fast delivery with low quality or slow delivery with high quality; with Topaz they can deliver high-quality applications quickly and more frequently.

DETROIT – April 1, 2019 –  Compuware today announced significant enhancements to Topaz for Total Test, the industry's leading automated testing solution that empowers developers and testers of any skill level to rapidly develop and deliver high-quality code. Topaz for Total Test now provides unit, functional, integration and regression testing capabilities in a single product—an industry-first for automated testing.

With today's announcement, Compuware is delivering on its vision of fundamentally changing how developers and testers create, execute and automate tests. The unified test automation solution leverages the unique strengths of Topaz for Total Test and XaTester (acquired in July 2018) under the Topaz brand.

Topaz for Total Test enhancements include:

• One user experience, enabling developers to run unit, functional and integration tests from the same test scenario—using one editor and one execution dialog—and see combined test results in one report. By creating and combining unit, functional and integration tests of a program or a group of programs, developers will ensure they have a regression test suite that covers all foreseeable failure scenarios.

• Automated functional testing in a web browser greatly simplifies functional testing for mainframe pros at any experience level. Traditional functional testing requires the manual and time-consuming effort of writing a program. Using a simple browser, test cases can now be automatically set up in minutes.  

• Advanced, flexible test scenario support enables developers and testers to orchestrate a sequence of steps. For example, results from one test are used as input into the next.

• Support for Test Driven Development (TDD), enabling developers and testers to design test cases up front based on program specifications before developing a program.

• Support for multi-program integration testing by allowing users to design specific tests for how programs interact with each other and with data.

• A new integration from XebiaLabs that enables users to integrate a Topaz for Total Test unit test scenario and/or test suite into a DevOps pipeline orchestrated by XebiaLabs.

• Automatic generation of JCL to execute unit, functional and integration tests, eliminating the requirement for developers to manually create their own JCL.

Through these new enhancements—along with deep code and load module visibility, automatic data virtualization and third-party DevOps toolchain integrations—Topaz for Total Test enables developers to significantly accelerate the testing process while improving quality.

According to Gartner1, "Application leaders responsible for developing digital business applications are under increasing pressure to maximize quality and velocity of delivery. They should adopt a 'shift left' approach to testing and invest in test automation to build a highly productive software development organization."

Topaz 3270 Emulator Improves the Developer Experience
To continuously improve the mainframe developer experience, the new Topaz 3270 Emulator provides the ideal level of functionality required to complete one-off "green screen" tasks without leaving Topaz.

Initiating a CICS transaction or accessing REXX utilities through the Emulator within Topaz enables developers to quickly resume Eclipse-based tasks for a seamless transition that increases productivity by eliminating the need to leave Topaz and toggle between applications.

Today's announcements mark the 18th consecutive quarter that Compuware has announced significant innovation in the modernization and mainstreaming of the mainframe. This innovation is of vital importance to large enterprises that must get maximum business value from their mainframe environments through Agile and DevOps best practices.

"Automated testing was the missing link to true mainframe Agility and DevOps. Without it, large enterprises found it difficult to rigorously safeguard the quality of their mission-critical mainframe applications as digital demands increase," Compuware CEO Chris O'Malley said. "Topaz for Total Test fills that gap, enabling our customers to automate the design, iteration and execution of tests, boosting development velocity, quality and efficiency."

 1 Gartner, Inc., "Adopt a 'Shift Left' Approach to Testing to Accelerate and Improve Application Development," by Jim Scheibmeir and Joachim Herschmann, January 3, 2018.

Compuware Corporation

Compuware empowers the world's largest companies to excel in the digital economy by fully leveraging their high-value mainframe investments. We do this by delivering highly innovative solutions that uniquely enable IT professionals with mainstream skills to manage mainframe applications, data, and platform operations. Learn more at compuware.com.