Compuware today announced a product acquisition, enhancements to Topaz for Total Test, and a partnership that together dramatically improve the ability of large enterprises to embrace Agile and DevOps on their mainframes through the broader use of simplified, automated unit testing-which is essential for fast, safe and efficient development and deployment of new digital deliverables.

To deliver on its vision of Topaz for Total Test as the de facto standard for automating mainframe unit testing across all major mainframe environments and programming languages, Compuware has:

• Acquired XaTester from Xact Consulting A/S, enabling developers to quickly create unit tests for both batch and CICS-based programs written in COBOL, PL/I and Assembler. CICS is especially important as the transaction processing technology of choice for many of the world's largest enterprises-especially financial institutions and insurance companies-due to its extremely high integrity, performance and scalability.
   
• Enhanced Topaz for Total Test to provide automated unit testing for IMS batch and transactional applications. Testing for IMS is especially important given that contemporary developers often have little or no hands-on experience with IMS code. These enhancements complement Topaz for Total Test's existing support for batch applications written in COBOL-as well as its integration with leading cross-platform DevOps tools such as Jenkins, SonarSource SonarQube and Compuware ISPW.
   
• Partnered with Parasoft, a leading innovator in end-to-end test automation for software development. The first deliverable for the partnership is integration between Parasoft SOAtest and Topaz for Total Test. This integration enables developers working on mainframe applications to quickly and easily test API calls between mainframe and non-mainframe systems.

Topaz for Total Test fundamentally transforms mainframe development by giving developers the same type of unit testing capabilities on the mainframe they've become accustomed to on other platforms. Unit testing is a fundamental requirement for modern software development. It enables developers to find potential problems in their code as early as possible, to more quickly and frequently deliver incremental changes in software functionality, and to more granularly document code for the benefit of other developers.

The result for large enterprises is a unified DevOps toolchain that accelerates development across all platforms-including the mainframe-so they can more effectively compete in today's rapidly-changing markets.

"XaTester and Topaz for Total Test are two great and complementary products for automating mainframe unit testing, which is essential to DevOps," said Steen Brahe, Senior Product Manager, Compuware (formerly from Xact Consulting). "The unified tool will leverage the best from both products and fundamentally change how customers create, execute and automate unit and integration tests for mainframe applications."

"The XaTester unit testing software has proven its value. I am pleased that Compuware will work to blend its capabilities with Topaz for Total Test as it will benefit all mainframe customers," said Elvin Høyer, CEO at Xact Consulting.   

"The new rules of the digital economy are putting pressure on our customers to achieve the utmost speed with the utmost quality," said Luke Tuddenham, Vice President at CPT, a global IT consulting services firm with a significant testing practice. "With today's announcements, Compuware has again demonstrated its leadership in innovative automated testing technologies for the mainframe that will help us help our clients to achieve this critical goal."

Compuware Topaz, a comprehensive suite of solutions, provides DevOps professionals at all skill levels with a visually intuitive environment where they can effectively understand and work on any mainframe application-regardless of age, complexity or lack of documentation. This simplified, streamlined approach is especially important as responsibility for applications running on the platform shifts from IT professionals with decades of mainframe-specific experience to a new generation of DevOps artisans who are more familiar with mainstream technologies such as Java and C++.

"REST and SOAP APIs provide the backbone of today's business-critical applications, especially when these services are used to access the power of the mainframe." said Parasoft VP of Products, Mark Lambert. "Test automation at the API layer is essential to delivering high quality at the speed of Agile and the Parasoft SOAtest plugin for Topaz brings API test automation directly to the mainframe developer, helping ensure the delivery of reliable, scalable and secure services."

Today's announcement comes during the 15th consecutive quarter that Compuware has delivered significant innovations that help large enterprises mainstream the mainframe, so they can better leverage the platform's unmatched performance, scalability, reliability, efficiency and security.

"Large enterprises increasingly recognize that digital innovation in the cloud must be paired with digital innovation on the mainframe," said Chris O'Malley, CEO of Compuware. "Compuware's passion and support for this mainframe-based digital innovation is unmatched-as we have once again demonstrated with this latest round of aggressive deliverables that enable Agile and DevOps best practices on the platform."