Micro Focus intros Test Server for mainframe apps

BANGALORE, INDIA: Micro Focus, provider of enterprise application modernization, testing and management solutions has announced the availability of Micro Focus Test Server.

Banking customers such as Banco Espirito Santo (BES), are implementing Micro Focus Test Server to improve software quality by increasing available mainframe test capacity on a Windows platform, said a press release.

According to the release, Micro Focus Test Server is an IBM z/OS compatible environment where application execution behaves just as it would on the target production mainframe enabling to perform a broad range of pre-production testing on readily available hardware.

The release further added that, testing capacity can now be easily increased to meet business-critical time-frames without incurring prohibitive costs.

Eddie Houghton, product director at Micro Focus, comments said, "There are significant numbers of IBM mainframes in use across the world and 76 per cent of CIOs view them as integral to their business today."

"Applications running on IBM mainframes are nearly always business-critical. It is therefore crucial to provide sufficient test cycles to ensure the software meets the demands of the business and its customers," added Houghton."

According to the release, the features of test server includes:

* Support for a wide range of mainframe COBOL and Assembler applications and data including batch with JCL, online CICS or IMS TM, DB2, IMS DB and VSAM files

* A black box test execution environment for composite applications where .NET and Java programmes invoke mainframe COBOL resources

* Close integration back to the mainframe with seamless and secure access to mainframe source code libraries, applications and data, enabling organizations to integrate testing with resources that continue to reside on the mainframe

* A proven test server engine that provides a high performance, robust execution environment for multi-region, multi-user testing