Borland Updates Silk Portfolio – Focusing on Performance and Collaboration Across all Testing Assets

Borland, a Micro Focus company (LSE: MCRO.L), today announced updates to the Borland Silk Portfolio – extending its comprehensive set of quality and performance testing tools for desktop, web, cloud and mobile to include network and collaborative testing. The latest version will help enable customers to gain a truer understanding of what global end users are experiencing. As a result, customers can be empowered to deliver high-quality applications that run at optimum performance levels quickly and efficiently while improving team collaboration.

To meet the expectations of today’s commercial software consumers, enterprise organizations must understand and test true user experience on a large and global scale in order to deliver quality business applications that work flawlessly. While software development teams battle an ever-expanding number of platforms, browsers, mobile devices and operating systems, traditional application testing is not enough. To further add to application quality complexities, a lack of collaboration between development, business and quality assurance teams means that changes to a development project are not effectively communicated to all stakeholders, fueling schedule delays and additional costs.

Silk Performer has introduced new features to simulate a variety of wired, wireless and mobile network technologies. In addition to mobile bandwidth limitations like 3G, HSPA+ and LTE, the solution also simulates packet drop rate and latency. It enables enterprise organizations to measure the impact of different network conditions like poor antenna signal, high latency on long distance connections and reduced transfer rates, meaning issues can be anticipated and tested out before they occur. This enables them to ensure quality user experience no matter how and from where their users access their applications. Furthermore, through SilkPerformer Remedy, organizations can now load test Remedy AR System Web solutions, the four-tier system architecture, to simulate IT system users experience reliably on a large scale.

To address the challenge of successful collaboration between technical and business focused users, Silk Test and Silk Central have introduced a collaborative approach to linking business objectives to testing teams called keyword-driven testing (KDT). Developers and testers can now develop the test keywords and let the business analysts and domain experts define the complex business workflows using the keywords, enabling more effective test collaboration. This helps increase productivity and improves testing return on investment (ROI) by reducing the cost and time needed for test design, automation and execution.

Enhancing cloud-based load testing of internal applications behind the firewall, Silk Performer CloudBurst has been extended to include support for testing non-web enterprise applications like SAPGUI, Oracle Applications and Citrix from the cloud using a built-in Virtual Private Network (VPN). This means that enterprises can be confident about safely testing the performance of their in house applications while keeping costs down.

“End user expectations are higher than ever, which puts enormous pressure on software development teams to deliver sub-second response times, right-first-time applications and new products every few months,” said Archie Roboostoff, Borland Solutions Portfolio Director at Micro Focus. “Our goal is to anticipate and address every challenge for our customers across the testing segment of the software development supply chain, helping them keep pace with end user and business demands for high quality applications first time.

“The latest updates to our Silk Portfolio deliver on this mission, particularly with the introduction of industry-leading functionalities that broaden the test scope to include network infrastructure virtualization and an increasing range of internal enterprise applications behind the firewall,” added Roboostoff.

Additional Silk Portfolio updates include:

• Silk Performer – Network emulation has been introduced to simulate mobile bandwidth limitations, packet drop rates and latency, enabling software development teams to measure the impact of different network conditions including poor antenna signal, high latency on long distance connections and reduced transfer rates.
• Silk Test – Keyword-driven testing has been added. Silk Test keeps test design separate from the actual test script to enhance productivity and collaboration between users, and to let key stakeholders, such as line of business owners, easily participate in application testing. Cross-browser support has also been enhanced, enabling users to immediately validate their web application on the latest browser versions when they are released without the need to update Silk Test.
• Silk Central – Keyword-driven testing has been added to aid collaboration across business and technical teams, and improve productivity. The keyword-driven testing integration between Silk Central and Silk Test delivers a seamless transition from manual to automated testing for all users.
• Silk Performer CloudBurst – Support for testing of non-web enterprise applications like SAPGUI, Oracle Applications and Citrix from the Cloud using built-in VPN has been included. This enables enterprises to leverage the elasticity of the Cloud to test the performance of their most critical enterprise applications.

The Silk Portfolio end-to-end quality solution helps development organizations manage the uncertainties and risk brought about by new technology platforms, multiple devices and network speeds, and the increasing pace of product deliveries, all while ensuring the new notion of quality throughout the software development lifecycle.

To find out more about the Borland Silk product set visit: http://www.borland.com/Products.

About Borland

Originating in 1983, Borland Software Corporation is a world-class provider of requirements, test and change management solutions. As part of Micro Focus Ltd, a member of the FTSE 250, Borland offers tools that are open, agile and work across the entire Application Development Lifecycle to enable customers to build better software, faster. For additional information please visit www.borland.com.

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