Parasoft Virtualize Reviews

1. Ease of creating working bank-end web services

2. Ability to customize individual responses

3. Minimum knowledge required for setup

4. Always ON-LINE

Parasoft Virtualization allowed us to create a simulated environment and test the code before entering the testing cycle. Also, increase testing cycles without impacting any major line of business and back-end components. Furthermore, it provide us with an environment that is always available for QA, Automation, and Performance.

An area of improvements would be Data Repository, as in current stage it is difficult to manage data from this aspect. Searching, modifying and updating data is a tedious task. In addition, importing to the repository function is

5 years

No issues with deployment

Encountered in earlier versions < 9.8

No issues

9/10

9/10

Initial setup was straightforward

100%

Yes we have evaluated Selenium.

Quick generation of virtual assets from service definitions such as WSDL documents

Extend the basic functionality of virtual assets using scripting

Environment Manager providing a clear user interface for environment provisioning and configuration

Docker image available for seamless Continuous Delivery and Continuous Testing integration

I have used Virtualize in two projects now, and in both projects it has delivered impressive results.

• In the first project, at a major telecommunications service provider in the Netherlands, the test team was depending on an external (human) resource for the successful provisioning of orders in a backend system. This could lead to a delay in order (i.e., test case) preparation and execution time up to a week. Using Virtualize, this dependency has been removed completely, allowing the test team to provision many more orders in shorter time, enabling them to test much more, much faster. It also paved the way for the introduction of automated end-to-end testing and the introduction of an agile software development approach, which was previously impossible due to the long lead times required for order creation.
• The second project was completed at an organization responsible for the transfer of student- and education-related information between higher education institutions and the Dutch government agency responsible for higher education. Within this organization, only a single test environment for the government agency was available for integration with the multitude of test environments at the various higher education institutions. This meant that only a single test environment was available for proper end-to-end testing. Using Virtualize, we were able to create virtual assets that simulated the behavior of the government agency dependency, allowing all test environments to be available for realistic end-to-end testing. This allowed all higher education institutions and their partners to perform end-to-end testing at will, instead of having to wait for 'their' testing slot.

Even though improvements are being made in this area with the developments around Data Repositories, I am still missing the opportunity to easily store and reuse data persistently, without having to redeploy the virtual assets after each update.

Real life example: when a student registers for a course, this affects his or her tuition situation. For each student, all registrations need to be stored somewhere because at any moment in the future, the current tuition situation needs to be derived using all current and past course registrations.

At the moment, I am working around this by adding scripts (Extension Tools) that store the data required in a database separately from Virtualize and retrieve this when necessary.

A generic solution for this issue that would at least reduce the amount of scripting necessary to properly simulate real life behavior would be very welcome.

I have been a Parasoft Virtualize user for the past three years.

No. Since Virtualize is provided either as a simple installer or as a Docker image (in the most recent versions), installation is as simple as clicking a button.

When Virtualize is running on a (virtual) machine with limited memory, over time it might consume more and more memory and (worst case) stall. This is probably more of an Eclipse issue than purely a Virtualize issue, though.

No.

Excellent.

Great. Whenever I have any questions concerning Virtualize, there's always someone available to help.

No, this is the first service virtualization solution I have used. I do have previous experience using simpler stubbing solutions, but these do not provide the flexibility and ease of use that Virtualize does.

Very straightforward. Installation is a matter of minutes, after which you are set to build your first virtual assets, either by recording live traffic or modeling them using predefined service or message specifications.

As a freelancer, I am hired by end users to implement Parasoft solutions on site. As such, I work very closely with the Parasoft team, but I am not part of a vendor team, nor do I work somewhere in-house.

Yes, there is an initial investment requirement, and you should definitely do some research to see whether this investment pays off in terms of increased speed of delivery or test coverage.

However, please take into account that the ease of creating, deploying and especially maintaining and managing complex virtual assets using Virtualize could very well turn out to be more cost-efficient in the longer term compared to building and managing custom solutions.

No, as I was (part of) the implementation team, not the person responsible for product selection and buying.

Additional information, presentations and case studies regarding Parasoft Virtualize, its features and the proven benefits it has provided to a range of Parasoft customers are readily available. Contact your regional sales partner, they are there to help.

Also, please feel free to contact me if you want to hear more about Virtualize from an independent third party.

The Parasoft Service Virtualization product is very user friendly. While there are other products in the market that achieve similar results, most all are highly technical and require a fully technical background to execute. Parasoft's product is easier to operate, and drives the user to make the right decisions and complete the work efficiently. I'm not at all implicating that the product is not technical, because if you are a technical engineer with the background in scripting and working with such products, you can go 'under the hood' of the front end user interface and be as technical with Parasoft as any of their competitors.

I would have to say that the Environment Manager (EM) component is one of the cleanest, easiest, and most impacting part of the application. The graphical interface of the EM screen allows you to setup and configure a blueprint of your environments and within this same application, you can setup the EM screen to drive the activation/deactivation of the virtualized components. With one simple click, you can run the LIVE application/environment, or you can run the virtual instance, or you can drive the application to return positive or negative results. You can also determine a delay (which is perfect for Performance Testing) to enable the virtualized response to wait X seconds to respond. You can even set it to respond in random seconds. The whole EM component gives a feel that you are behind the wheel, and you can see the whole road. Kudos to Parasoft for implementing this as part of their virtualization and SOATest solutions.

I was fortunate to execute a proof of concept with Parasoft with a previous employer. we saw the value immediately. That employer chose a competitor, but only because the competitor product was already in house and there was no cost to using their product. Otherwise, Parasoft would have won the head to head comparison.

In my current role, we use Parasoft Service Virtualization to fill gaps within our environments, to enable testing earlier, and to enable us to test situations within our test environments long before the environments are ready for use.

There are none at this time. I like their structure of licensing. You don't have to buy seated licenses, you can buy a server license which will cover anyone who is using the server. This allows you to expand your team without having to buy new licenses.

Two years

None at all. It was easy, smooth, and the Parasoft support is awesome.

None.

None, the product works with all of our other test management tools, and the integration was seamless.

10 out of 10. I have the ability to reach the top of the company if needed. They were onsite for every meeting during the reviews, in short notice, and they sent their CSO out to finalize the deal, which showed their commitment to the engagement.

10 out of 10.

I have used another solution with a previous employer. I switched because I moved to a new company, but when I joined, we were evaluating service virtualization solutions and i suggested that we look at Parasoft due to my previous evaluation of their product.

Very easy to setup, and as mentioned, they provide very detailed and hands on support.

We leveraged Parasoft to get us stood up, but we had engineers to take over and work on the product.

Cannot disclose that as it is confidential to my company, but ROI will be very positive.

As mentioned, they provide a very competitive pricing model, and one which will not require seated licenses. Makes it easy to get everyone on the product and using it as you expand.

Not at liberty to disclose, but we would have looked at all the common competitors in this space.

If you don't have a SV product in house, you need one. Even if you don't think you do. All you have to do is evaluate how long you wait for a test environment to be ready so that your testing can start. Or how many times you have a 3rd party application not ready for you and you have to wait, or you have an environment down and testing has to stop. There are so many other uses for it. But when you realize these values and you are ready to purchase, you need to get a demo of Parasoft. You won't regret it.