Borland teams with VMware

CUPERTINO, USA: Borland Software Corporation has announced an integration with VMware software to enable enterprise software development organizations to more cost effectively perform multi-configuration and cross-platform software application testing by maximizing the use of virtualization.

Borland will deliver native support for virtual lab environments by integrating Borland SilkCentral Test Manager 2007, a core component of Borland's Lifecycle Quality Management (LQM) solution, with VMware Lab Manager version 2.5.

SilkCentral Test Manager 2007, the latest release of the company's software test management platform, will extend test management reach and coverage with seamless access to virtualized test environments in VMware Lab Manager.

"A major bottleneck to testing is the lack of available systems and infrastructure resources on which to run tests," said Melinda-Carol Ballou, program director for application lifecycle management software at IDC Research.

He added "In many instances, groups with access to those resources hoard them and share sporadically or ineffectively. Creating and managing complex systems configurations on which to run tests is also a significant barrier. Virtual test lab management helps to lessen and even eliminate those barriers by providing a platform on which to manage and run test management solutions, scripts, and tests."

With the ability to call VMware Lab Manager environments directly from SilkCentral Test Manager, users can create and assign individual tests to run on many different configurations or platforms without the high costs of hardware or the time needed to administer physical systems.

Productivity can also be improved by optimizing the use of virtualized infrastructure, allowing pooled resources to be shared across testing and development teams.

The integration will allow users to provision even the most complex development and test environments in minutes, rather than days, and shave significant time off software development cycles through rapid, automated setup and teardown. Once a test run is started, the integration works seamlessly with VMware Lab Manager to deploy the requested virtual environments, run all tests, collect data from the systems, and shut them down again when completed.

"Virtualization is one of the hottest, game-changing trends in the IT industry today and offers an attractive value proposition for organizations challenged with complex testing environments," said Brad Johnson, director of product marketing, Lifecycle Quality Management, Borland Software.

"Borland is embracing the rapid adoption of virtualization technologies not with a 'plug-in' approach, but with the only tightly integrated solution developed in collaboration with the virtualization market leader. This combined solution could be used to dramatically impact the way global organizations test and ensure quality at a fraction of the cost of traditional approaches." he added

Click here to know more about Borland SilkCentral Test Manager and related technologies.