RadView Software Ltd. is upgrading its applications testing software with options it says can bring distributed performance problems into greater focus.
The Burlington, Mass., company is adding Webload Analyzer as a complement to its recently released Webload 6.0. The software provides greater granularity in trouble-shooting performance issues that arise during quality assurance testing for Web services applications.
Webload Analyzer, based on technology from Altaworks Corp., in Nashua, N.H., can pinpoint problems uncovered during testing down to the specific transaction, class, method and code level.
The suite provides a view of J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) Web application performance from inside or outside the firewall. The combination, along with RadViews lower price and simplified scripting, gives customers a wider range of choices and keeps large players such as Mercury Interactive Corp. competitive, said Melinda Ballou, an analyst with Meta Group Inc., in Westboro, Mass.
Webload 6.0 floods an application with transactions that simulate end-user activity, while Webload Analyzer monitors and gathers application infrastructure data, then correlates that data with transaction activity and traffic bursts. When defined thresholds are exceeded, Webload Analyzer generates an alert, and developers can use the tool to pinpoint the source of a problem.
“The tool lets you tighten the scope for debugging,” said Deborah Kablotsky, director of product management at RadView. “Analyzer gives a more refined, exact point of the problem in the application. You can see a specific method is causing a problem, or a database call is causing the problem.” Webload Analyzer uses data collection agents installed on each server, whether it is a Web, an application or a database server. Plug-ins that work on top of the agents collect performance data for a server and report it in real time to a browser-based console.
The tool supports Apache and J2EE-based application servers such as BEA Systems Inc.s WebLogic, IBMs WebSphere and Sun Microsystems Inc.s Solaris, as well as IBMs AIX and DB2. It is available now, and pricing starts at $27,000.