IBM will celebrate the anniversary of its Rational Software acquisition this week by launching the first Tivoli tool to fully exploit Rationals Robot technology.
The new release of TMTP (Tivoli Monitoring for Transaction Performance) is the first IBM product to exploit the Rational technology, which generates specialized synthetic transactions for testing applications during development.
The release is intended to draw IT development and operations closer together to ensure that new applications operate as expected. With the failure rate for application development projects as high as 74 percent, according to a report from Forrester Research Inc., in Cambridge, Mass., its more important than ever for both sides to work together to ensure the smooth rollout of new applications, Tivoli officials said.
TMTP consists of a central management server, which collects response time data from agents installed in remote PCs located at specific points. The management server pushes out test scripts that generate synthetic transactions designed to mimic actual user behavior. Agents can now include Rational Robot agents and Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition monitoring agents that collect detailed application metrics from the J2EE server. TMTP uses industry-standard ARM to gather performance metrics. It automatically injects ARM instrumentation into the J2EE environment.
The tool, which vies with testing tools from Mercury Interactive Corp., has a richer testing capability than its predecessor, thanks to Rationals technology. It can better handle operations such as authentication and Java applets that create new windows, said Randy Scott, Tivoli strategist for monitoring and transaction management, in Austin, Texas.
Current TMTP users such as Dan Vaught often also use Mercury Interactive quality assurance tools to ensure application functionality. Vaught, director of architecture and data management for Safelite Glass Corp., in Columbus, Ohio, said the new release of TMTP with the Rational Robot “finishes off the overall cycle of software development. It gives us the option of being able to do monitoring in production.”
Next year, IBM intends to further leverage the Rational technology by integrating the ARM instrumentation.
TMTP Version 5.2 is available now, and its pricing starts at about $50,000.