Reflective Solutions Sign Partnership Agreement with Maximo EAM Specialist Vetasi

Reflective Solutions has announced a new technology partnership agreement with, Vetasi, the UK’s leading Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) consultancy.

Reflective specialises in the development of enterprise-class application performance testing and monitoring tools. The company’s flagship product, StressTester™, is used by major organisations to test that their Intranet and Extranet applications and their e-commerce Web sites are fully optimised and scalable to support their business requirements.

StressTester™ is widely used to validate the performance criteria for users of Maximo EAM and other ERP and EAM applications. Unlike other enterprise-class tools, StressTester™ does not require weeks of set-up time which means that full, realistic performance tests can be conducted during the development phase, with results obtained typically in hours or days rather than the weeks required with other tools.

StressTester’s Graham Parsons talks to The Tester about performance testing in an Agile environment

The adoption of Agile practices during the development of a web application can deliver significant benefits, both in terms of an application’s quality and the enhanced productivity that generally results from the Agile development process.

One of the key purposes of Agile is to ensure that the current version of software functions as
expected, no matter what stage the development is at. To this end, every iteration of an Agile
project includes functional testing in the form of unit and acceptance testing. The early discovery and resolution of defects written into the code can help to guard against major unforeseen problems arising near project completion. After all, who wants to find a fault with the application weeks or even days before launch? This could severely compromise an application’s launch date (and delivery budget) and could cost a company dearly, in terms of overspend, lost revenue or business opportunities. There is even potential reputational damage to consider...

So, with a firm case in mind for functional testing during every iteration of an Agile project, together with an acknowledgement that this approach has become industry best practice, why do most developers apply a different logic when it comes to performance testing? In the latest issue of The Tester Graham Parsons discusses the risks and barriers surrounding performance testing in an Agile environment.

StressTester’s Graham Parsons talks to Internet Retailing about the importance of performance testing in the New Year.

Figures show that online sales are continuing to grow annually; according to the Office of National Statistics, average weekly online sales increased by 36.6% year-on-year to £660 million a week in November 2010 and during the same period, web business accounted for 10.5% of all sales in the UK retail sector. At the same time however, consumers are becoming less patient with web pages that take more than a few seconds to load. Extensive research into consumer behaviour shows that if customers perceive a website to be too slow, they are likely to switch to a competitor’s website to make their purchase, resulting in lost revenue and lost customers for the original retailer.

With all of that in mind, ecommerce represents a significant revenue stream for most retailers in 2011, provided that their websites are up to the task. Internet Retailing asked Graham parsons why performance is the key to a website’s success.

Graham Parsons talks to Management Today: how to make sure your ecommerce site isn't leaking revenue

Online sales scaled dizzy new heights over the recent holiday season, thanks to the annual pre-Christmas shopping frenzy, snow hampering high street footfall and a record number of consumers trawling the net for sale bargains as early as Christmas Eve (and even on Christmas Day). John Lewis alone announced total sales of over £500m for the five week period leading up to January 1, representing a 42% increase compared with the same period in 2009. It seems realistic to say that the most successful retailers, regardless of size, are those tapping into this ever-increasing online consumerism trend.

Yet with consumers growing ever more impatient - as highlighted by extensive research suggesting that online shoppers are only prepared to wait a few seconds for website pages to display - it is not enough to merely have an e-commerce channel. It is critical that retailers’ e-stores are able to perform optimally and deliver a positive customer experience, even when hundreds, if not thousands, of customers are using the site simultaneously. Getting it wrong can result in the loss of substantial amounts of revenue to competitor sites that are better prepared for peak traffic periods.

Management Today asked Graham Parsons of Reflective Solutions, the company behind application performance testing tool StressTester™, for his top ten tips on how e-tailers can ensure their website doesn’t leak revenue to competitors. See Graham's response here:http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/1049584/

Website Failure Snow Joke for National Rail.....

Graham Parsons comments on the failure of nationalrail.co.uk - have they lost customers as a result? 

http://www.professionaltester.com/news/Article.asp?id=210 

It's more important than ever that stakeholders in public-facing web and cloud applications realise that there is no second chance. Effective testing under realistic load is not optional but essential.

StressTester CEO Graham Parsons talks to T.E.S.T. Magazine about why websites should not fail under heavy user load

Graham's article in the December 2010 issue of T.E.S.T. Magazine outlines why it's not acceptable for websites to fail under heavy user load.  Correct and realistic performance testing enables optimum web application performance even during extreme traffic peaks http://bit.ly/eOdO2g 

CTE Chooses StressTester™ As Recommended Application Performance Testing Tool for Major US Financial Services Client

StressTester™, a new breed of scriptless web performance testing software, and its sister product Sentinel™, have been chosen by Atlanta-based independent testing consultancy, Celtic Testing Experts Inc (CTE), to deliver web performance testing and monitoring for its high profile US financial services client.

CTE selected StressTester following an extensive review of performance testing tools on behalf of its client as part of a strategic review of the company’s web-based applications. Following a rigorous selection process with competition from some of the most recognizable names in performance testing, the consultancy chose StressTester™ with Sentinel due to the combination of world class products, leading technical expertise and testing services offered at a competitive price. 

Designed to reduce costs and project timescales by as much as 80 per cent when compared to rival products, StressTester™ offers in-depth analysis of any web application’s performance, scalability and load capacity. The tool, which is already used by other major US organizations, enables enterprise-class, correct and realistic testing, without the need for specialist scripting expertise. This means that testers can focus on regularly testing throughout the development life-cycle rather than expending many man days on writing test scripts.

Sentinel is Reflective Solutions’ performance monitoring software. Based on the same core software used by StressTester, Sentinel can be located in multiple data centers to provide IT managers with automated alerts when an application’s performance falls below acceptable thresholds, on a real-time basis.  This ensures that organizations are able to rapidly respond to any problems before they escalate into major operational issues for users.

Hank Rainwater, Chief Technology Officer at Celtic Testing Experts Inc, comments: “We were extremely impressed by the detailed proposal for StressTester and Sentinel put forward by Reflective Solutions.  The world class products, testing services and technical expertise they offered, along with its competitive pricing, were what set StressTester apart from its competitors.”

Alan Liggett, Reflective Solutions’ Director for North America, adds: “We are delighted to have been selected by such a highly regarded testing consultancy to provide the performance and web load testing solution for one of its most valued clients. Celtic Testing Experts Inc sets a very high benchmark for professionalism, so we look forward to working with them to successfully meet the requirements of the brief as well as other projects in the future.”