Marcel Sarrasin, Chief Product Officer at Fresche, said that “there is a growing requirement for IBM i shops to develop, modify and test applications more quickly and improve speed to market. For example, we see numerous companies performing field resizing, refactoring RPG, and carrying out a variety of other projects, all of which require significant testing. Automation is key to adapting rapidly and moving multiple projects forward to completion. To meet the demand, Fresche developed X-Replay to be a key piece of our IBM i testing suite. We want to better support the IBM i market, help the community adopt better testing practices and reduce business expenses by providing easy-to-use tools that identify issues quickly and increase productivity through automation.”
Some of the key features of X-Replay include:
- A 5250 emulator to make it easy for end users or developers to record tests – including screen navigation – and to identify specific elements they wish to validate.
- Automatically-generated test scripts that can be modified and re-run as part of an automated process, including integrating with DevOps solutions such as Jenkins.
- A reporting dashboard to highlight the point of a test failure, including an image of the screen and a visual playback of the test, speeding issue resolution.
- Integration with Fresche’s X-Datatest and IBM’s Code Coverage to provide end-to-end testing, including the UI, business logic and the database. X-Datatest prepares test databases, develops test cases and provides regression testing while IBM’s Code Coverage helps test business logic.
“With this solution, we are enabling a new level of quality, automated testing for IBM i application development and modernization,” said Pascal Polverini, senior Fresche consultant, IBM Champion and one of the architects of the solution. “Customers can work seamlessly with tools that fully integrate across the lifecycle where they can plan, execute, and run manual and automated tests – faster and with more accuracy. One of the major differentiators with X-Replay is its design. Traditional 5250 testing solutions use screen shots or screen coordinates, whereas X-Replay uses field names, which gives developers the ability to change field position and size without breaking test cases. In addition, the test scripts can be modified to make tests more scalable. The easier we make testing for IBM i developers, the more likely they are to adopt better testing practices.”
X-Replay is part of the X-Analysis Suite of developer productivity and testing tools. All solutions in the X‑Analysis Suite are designed to improve development and enhance modernization of IBM i environments. The suite is available today from IBM i partners, VARS, ISVs and Fresche itself. For more about X‑Replay, see https://freschesolutions.com/products/automated-ui-testing/ or contact
Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.
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