Micro Focus , the leading provider of enterprise application modernization, testing and management solutions, today announced availability of Silk Central 12.0 and Silk Performer 9.0, the company’s latest test management and application performance solutions. The Silk product portfolio now provides a fully integrated framework to improve productivity, traceability and visibility for all types of software testing, helping organizations to achieve quality goals and meet aggressive service level agreements (SLAs).

From functional testing to cloud-based performance testing, it is critical for organizations to have the right tools to spot and correct defects rapidly across the application portfolio. With the new releases of Silk Central and Silk Performer, software development teams can now fully align standard and mobile application testing efforts. The real-time visibility and collaboration provided by Silk Central’s new dashboard combined with Silk Performer’s extended support for Web and native application testing, enables development teams to catch and drive out defects earlier in the development lifecycle. With increased control and improved productivity, organizations can focus resources where they deliver the most value.

“Companies continue to struggle between delivering access to business applications 24/7 and ensuring those applications meet the ever-increasing quality and performance expectation of users,” said Archie Roboostoff, Borland Solutions Portfolio Director at Micro Focus. “By connecting the tools with processes, Silk now provides the critical, customized control over what, how, when and where teams conduct testing.”

Increasing Collaboration and Communication with Silk Central
Silk Central is a powerful, open, test management solution for both agile and traditional development projects that improves productivity, control and visibility for all types of software testing. With its new personal dashboard, Silk Central provides users with a fully customizable, collaborative UI that serves as the jumping off point for testers and test managers.

The real-time visibility of Silk Central enables team members to find defects faster and ensure complete test coverage regardless of the complexity of the project. It adapts to fit into any process and environment and ensures all team members have access to critical information anytime they need it. The personal dashboard includes more than 10 best practice tracking reports out of the box, allowing users to quickly and easily get up to speed on reporting key tests, plan for complete coverage, control test execution and manage individual testers.

Other new features of Silk Central include:

— Manual Execution Planning approach assists in selection, distribution, and execution of manual tests, ensuring that software development teams are working at peak efficiency so no resource is wasted during critical testing cycles.

— Enhanced Manual Test Execution features give test managers and testers a simple and easy way to track and execute manual tests. All test assignments and status reports are available on the personal dashboard, testers no longer need to navigate to separate activities panes for updates.

— Extended browser support for Google Chrome gives users a broad choice in browser types.

Bringing Software Testing to the Cloud with Silk Performer
The new Silk Performer solution uses Borland’s leading load, performance and stress testing, for on-premise, mobile, and cloud applications to extend web 2.0, mobile testing and cloud capabilities. Silk Performer 9.0’s mobile Web and native app simulations and usability enhancements further increase performance across any network being accessed by any device. Key benefits include:

— Cloud Ready Apps: With added support for Java, Java over HTTP, Silverlight and Flex/AMF3, Silk Performer now offers increased breadth and depth of web technology for the cloud, giving users more choice and ability to performance test all of their Web 2.0 applications. The combination of on- and off-premise testing with loading and reporting capabilities across three regions and seven countries, including Japan, Brazil, and the U.S., empowers teams to measure true global impact.

— Improved Usability: Silk Performer is now more intuitive for both new and experienced users. Fully modernized and streamlined workflows make it easier for users to install, demo and use, enabling development teams to comprehensively measure the performance and stability of their mission-critical enterprise applications.

— Mobile Enablement: Silk Performer now fully supports performance testing of mobile Web and native applications with out-of-the-box profiles for popular mobile devices and application types. This extensive support makes it easier to isolate and fix issues and gives users the option to test both HTTP and HTML mobile native applications.

For more information, visit: http://www.microfocus.com/products/silk/index.aspx.