Micro Focus is pleased to announce the general availability of Silk Performer 10.0 our award winning, enterprise-class performance testing solution.
Highlights of the Silk Performer 10.0 release include:
CloudBurst SaaS
Silk Performer CloudBurst offers an affordable and flexible approach to confirming whether the system under test meets your performance requirements. CloudBurst enables you to rent virtual infrastructure, virtual users, or a combination of the two for as long as you need them. With CloudBurst you can run load tests without permanent licenses. You are charged on a per-use basis, up to a specified maximum number of concurrently executed virtual users within a 24-hour testing period. The CloudBurst virtual infrastructure is made available to you in the form of pre-configured, ready-to-use Silk Performer agents, which can be deployed across multiple geographical regions. You can even combine pay-per-usage CloudBurst virtual agents with other agents you may have access to in your on-premise testing infrastructure (using a permanent Silk Performer license), all within the same load test.
NOTE: This CloudBurst functionality will be available from the middle of July 2013
Browser-Driven Web Load Testing Enhancements
Enhanced Reporting With Action Timers
Silk Performer introduces action timers and no longer treats measured times as custom timers in browser-driven tests. With this enhancement, each virtual user action, for example BrowserNavigate or BrowserClick , has its own action time. Action time is the time it takes a virtual user to complete an action, including processing and rendering in the browser. These response times are visible in all reports. They are featured in graphs in the overview report and included in rankings along with average action times. You even have the option of setting boundaries for action times.
Support for Download of Embedded Files
Silk Performer now supports the download of common embedded file types, including PDF, PPT, XLS, DOC and more in browser-driven Web load test scripts.
Insert Mouse Move
When you are testing websites where items only appear if you are hovering with your mouse over certain elements (for example a button or a menu item), you will get an error during the replay of the script. Silk Performer cannot detect the item because the hovering event is not recorded. Menus that are built with JavaScript are a good example for such a case. However, with Silk Performer you can fix this problem during the replay of a script.
In the Browser Application, you can click the Troubleshoot button when the error occurs, select Insert Mouse Move from the list, move the mouse over the UI element, press <Pause/Break> on your keyboard, click
Insert , and click Rerun Script . Now the script will run without an error.
Rerun to Line
In the Browser Application during the replay of a script, you can now rerun the script from the beginning to a certain line. Right-click a step in the Replay Window and click Rerun to Line
Internet Explorer 10 Support
Browser-driven Web load testing is now also possible with Internet Explorer 10.
Consistent Whitespace Trimming for Locators and Verifications
Silk Performer now consistently trims whitespaces regardless of the Internet Explorer version or mode you are using. If you want to use BDL scripts that were recorded with an older version of Silk Performer in Silk
Performer 10.0, you may need to adapt locators and verification values.
Copy to Clipboard in the Locator Spy
In the right window of the Locator Spy , you can now right-click a property and copy the property name, the property value, or both to the clipboard. If you copy both, the string will be saved in the form
@name='value'. A real-world example is @hideFocus='false'. This offers a convenient method of exchanging a property in the Locator field.
Add Verifications During a Try Script Run
To add a verification to a script, you previously did so while recording your script or by manually writing verification functions into the script after you recording. Now you can additionally add verifications during Try Script runs within the Browser Application. When replay is paused, which is for example the case when you use step-by-step mode, you can add a verification within the Locator Spy window. Adding verifications during a Try Script run works exactly as inserting a verification during recording.
Interactive Test Summaries: Key Metrics and Follow Up Actions
Silk Performer now displays newly designed summary pages each time a test completes. After each Try Script run, baseline test, and load test a summary page appears, displaying all important result information and suggestions for Next Steps.
Summary pages display test duration, number of errors, number of virtual users and agents used, number of failed and successful transactions, a list of all errors that occurred, graphs, and much more. On the right side of each summary page, you will find Next Steps buttons and other useful buttons, which, for example, direct you to related log or error files. You will also find links here to relevant Help topics that describe the summary page elements in detail.
Automatic User Type Generation
A user type is a unique combination of a script, a profile, and a user group. Silk Performer now automatically generates all possible user type combinations and displays the combinations in a list in the Define User Types and Find Baseline dialog boxes. Now you only need to assign the desired user types to your workload. You can filter the list of user types and directly add new profiles using the dialog.
Improved Result Analysis Features
Silk Performer now offers detailed result analysis with time-series data and the option of selecting a time-series computation interval of less than 10 seconds.
Detailed Result Analysis With Time-Series Data
A .tsd file that begins with t@... contains the time-series data of a certain user type of a single agent.
A .tsd file that begins with k@...contains the time-series data of a certain user type across all agents.
Selecting a Time-Series Computation Interval of Less Than 10 Seconds
You can now select a computation interval for time-series data of less than 10 seconds in duration in the profile settings. Select Settings> Replay > Results > Time Series. Then select a computation interval
from the list.
Note: Computational intervals of less than 10 seconds are not recommended as they can overload your agents.
Usability Enhancements
Usability enhancements have been implemented throughout Silk Performer:
Access Result Summaries from the Result Tree
Silk Performer now allows you to access result summaries from the Result tree: the Try Script summary, the baseline test summary, and the load test summary.
Enhanced Dialog Box to Adjust the Workload
The Adjust Workload dialog box has been redesigned and updated. You can now select a workload model and specify all necessary simulation times in the same dialog box. If you enter values that are not allowed, the fields will be highlighted.
Customizing Values for Microsoft Silverlight Applications
TrueLog Explorer now allows you to visually customize input data for Microsoft Silverlight applications. By displaying XML input data in the Post Data tab, you can change input values using the Parameter Wizard.
Quickly Filter and Select Application Types
On the Outline Project dialog box, you can now select predefined lists and filter the list of application types. To show only the application types that are Suitable for cloud execution select the corresponding entry. Of course you can still enter any string to filter the list of application types.
New Parameter for Starting Silk Performer From the Command Line
When you start Silk Performer from the command line, a new parameter is available: /Resultsdir:directory. This parameter specifies the directory where load test results are to be stored.
Technology Updates
WebSphere
In addition to long-standing monitoring support for WebSphere 6.1 with Performance Explorer, Silk Performer now supports the monitoring of IBM WebSphere Application Server 7, 8, 8.5 via JMX.
BMC Remedy 8.1
Silk Performer now supports Remedy 8.1.
BDL API for JSON
Silk Performer now provides API functions for manipulating JSON data. In particular JSON elements such as arrays, objects, or simple data type values can be queried and changed. This is especially useful for customization and verification of JSON data.
For a complete list of new features please refer to the Release Notes.
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