Micro Focus acquisitions bear fruit in software testing tools

Continuous quality assurance is one way to eliminate defects in software and reduce time to market. For that, Micro Focus has introduced SilkTest 2010 and SilkCentral Test, its latest software quality products.

In development since Micro Focus’ acquisitions of Borland and Compuware’s testing unit last year, SilkTest 2010, its automated testing product, adds several new test automation user interfaces to be “leveraged by all people in a software delivery team,” said Steve Dykstra, product marketing manager at Micro Focus.

A new codeless, storyboard-based testing UI targets less-technical users. Through screenshots, script becomes visual and allows business analysts, quality managers and those alike to create and run tests, Dykstra said.

In addition, SilkTest runs its UIs on an automation engine that creates simple scripts using open-agent technology, Dykstra explained. What this means, he said, is that users can test across different browsers using a single script, because it automatically synchronizes AJAX and Web 2.0 applications for testing.

SilkTest will monitor all the data in the background and let the user know when an automated test can run, Dykstra said. “This eliminates users from having to create bloated code to do manual synchronization.”

Silk4Net, another new UI, plugs into Microsoft Visual Studio, enabling .NET developers to create automated tests in their native programming language. SilkTest can also plug into Eclipse environments with its Silk4J plug-in.

SilkCentral 2010, a test management tool, now directly integrates with Micro Focus’ Caliber, its requirements definition and management suite. The integration allows a bidirectional push of requirements between SilkCentral and Caliber, and alerts the user to any changes made during requirements-driven testing, Dykstra said.

For versioning and management of test assets, SilkCentral can now integrate with Microsoft’s Visual Studio defect-tracking and source-control capabilities. New test management capabilities include shared manual test libraries and manual test versioning.