Topaz for Total Test Enables Developers to “Shift Left” with Automated Testing

It’s a new quarter, time for Compuware to deliver on its commitment to make life easier for the mainframe community with new functionality and integrations. Slightly over two years ago, Compuware introduced Topaz for Total Test[1], the industry’s first fully automated COBOL unit testing tool. Shortly thereafter, Topaz for Total Test was integrated with Jenkins and SonarSource SonarQube to enhance mainframe agility while dramatically reducing dependency on the specialized knowledge of mainframe veterans aging out of the workforce. Then, in July of 2018, Compuware acquired Xact Consulting's XaTester and committed to integrating its functionality with Topaz for Total Test.

Compuware delivered on that vision: the latest release of Topaz for Total Test, unveiled in April, leverages the unique strengths of Topaz for Total Test and XaTester under the Topaz brand. The solution combines unit, functional, integration and regression testing capabilities into a single product – an industry first in testing automation. See Figure 1.

With a growing array of DevOps partners, Compuware continues to expand access to and use of mainframe capabilities to benefit IT staff at all levels of mainframe experience. Let’s look at the back story and highlights of this announcement.

Mainframe challenges
The siloed culture of the mainframe, in combination with slow processes and antiquated tools,  constrains continuous improvements to software development and delivery quality, velocity and efficiency.

Manual testing imposes a particularly hefty constraint. Many mainframe programs, the biggest of which containing hundreds of thousands of lines of code, have been running for years. Developers, particularly mainframe-inexperienced programmers, are afraid to touch them for fear of introducing defects into the code. Over time, the code may accumulate undocumented changes, custom workarounds (also poorly, if at all documented), and complex relationships buried across widely dispersed lines of code. On-going maintenance and updates pose a daunting task.

Traditionally, solutions to improve the mainframe testing process have been focused, unintegrated, time-consuming and manual therefore error prone. Attempts at automation were spotty and isolated, requiring staff to move between multiple independent tools with no common user interface.

In the digital economy, the impact of any quality problem or service disruption is quickly visible and a threat to client satisfaction. With services closer than ever to systems operating environments, siloed processes are too isolated and unwieldy. They tend to slow operation and development efforts. Development and Ops must operate in a manner intensely aware of and responsive to customer satisfaction.

Operational and testing processes must be streamlined, while maintaining, if not increasing, quality while strictly controlling costs. Mainframe testing processes must be automated to enable developers to spend their valuable time innovating on large, complex mainframe applications. 

Topaz for Total Test delivers a radical change 

Compuware is meeting this critical need with Topaz for Total Test, which enables developers and testers to adopt a “shift left” approach to testing to improve software development and delivery quality, velocity and efficiency.

The newest enhancements to Topaz for Total Test fundamentally change how mainframe developers and testers create, execute and automate tests. Figure 2 provides a schematic view of how users can leverage Topaz for Total Test in a DevOps pipeline. In a quick summary, developers and testers are now able to:

•              Run unit, functional and integration tests from the same test scenario (eliminating wasteful switching between screens and tools).

•              Set up a functional test case in minutes (and store for reuse and sharing).

•              Orchestrate a sequence of test steps in a flexible test scenario (saves time and effort for comprehensive testing).

•              Design test cases up front and in support of Test-Driven Development (TDD) (more efficient use of scarce skilled resources).

•              Design specific tests for how programs interact with each other (saves time and effort, increases flexibility in testing).

•              Integrate a test scenario into a DevOps pipeline orchestrated by Jenkins and XebiaLabs (necessary for CI/CD).

•              Automatically generate JCL for test execution at runtime (much appreciated at every mainframer skill level).

                         

There is a lot more in Compuware’s announcement. ISPW adds functionality with APIs that provide more granular control for code deployment and lists Assignment, Release, Sets and Worklist information. ISPW usability is improved by the ability to check out a task from a previous historical version along with the ablility to view “Version Audit” information. ThruPut Manager has been extended to provide more information for better batch job management and throughput. It also provides more z/OS health check details. There’s more that makes these releases well worth checking out. We encourage you to do so.

Final Word
I began my career developing quality control plans for manufacturing telephone switching systems. I learned first-hand the tensions and trade-offs necessary to satisfy development, operations and QC staff while still meeting customer needs. Application testing as a manual task was difficult, time-intensive and error-prone. In truth, quality control efforts sometimes were forced to take a back seat in order to meet production quantity and delivery goals.   

Today’s mantra is for continuous development, production and delivery, while also demanding continuous improvement in services, speed of implementation and service quality to increase customer satisfaction. Compromises in any of these areas are no longer tolerable and especially not in the mainframe environment.  

In short, just getting along isn’t good enough. Mainframe operations can’t afford it. It is high time that automation was applied to test processes. Compuware Topaz for Total Test delivers a significant, radical first step with automation of unit, functional, integration and regression testing in a manner that makes it dramatically easier for mainframe developers and testers at all skill levels to test program functionality.

Combining insightful acquisitions with speedy integrations, Compuware has established an impressive record for quarterly delivery of new or enhanced solutions to modernize and improve the mainframe operations, development and management environment.

Compuware’s success combines insightful problem identification, open cooperation and continuous focus on delivery. They bring popular development and operations solutions into the mainframe environment and integrate them to create new, innovative solutions. The result is easier, more efficient access to mainframe capabilities for a new generation of developers and operations staff (mainstreaming the mainframe), while also benefiting existing, experienced mainframe staff with accessibility to the latest in DevOps solutions.


We’ll close with a quote from Compuware’s CEO Chris O’Malley that we wholeheartedly agree with, “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. 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.”

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[1] Ptak Associates commentary: https://ptakassociates.blogspot.com/2018/01/mainstream-mainframe-with-automated.html