Release notes for Version 9.2

Read about new features, system requirements, installation, known issues, and support for IBM® Rational® Integration Tester, IBM Rational Test Virtualization Server, IBM Rational Performance Test Server, version 9.2.

Contents

Description

IBM Rational Test Workbench delivers end-to-end functional, regression, load, and integration testing to address the quality challenges of highly complex and integrated applications. This offering includes the following installable components:
  • Rational Integration Tester, a scripting-free environment for developing tests for SOA messaging and business process integration projects. Tests can be built by recording existing system behaviors or from requirements, by entering the data to send and the data that is expected in return. You can also create virtual services to remove test dependencies and enable earlier testing. Virtual services can be deployed by Rational Test Virtualization Server to provide on-demand virtualized test environments that can support all phases of the test development lifecycle.
  • Rational Test Control Panel, a server-based web application that provides a central repository for virtualized services. With Rational Test Control Panel, you can use virtual services that are published by Rational Integration Tester to create, share, and deploy virtualized test environments in Rational Test Virtualization Server. It also contains technology-specific components that are used by Integration Tester for recording SOA message conversations, HTTP(S) and JDBC traffic, and for monitoring middleware systems under test with minimal reconfiguration of client applications.

New features and enhancements

What's new in Version 9.2.0.1

  • The Rational Test Control Panel Usage page now supports viewing usage statistics for a custom date range in addition to the fixed ranges that were previously available. See Viewing usage statistics in Rational Test Control Panel.
  • A new TEST/MESSAGE_SWITCH/CONSOLE_TXT tag is available for use in tests and stubs. It holds the console messages for the most recently run Message Switch action. See The Tag Data Store.
  • Rational Integration Tester now supports publishing of Rational Integration Tester test results to the Unified Reporting dashboard on IBM Rational Test Control Panel See Unified Reporting dashboard.
  • The list of agents changed for a release was updated. See the Tools page of Rational Test Control Panel to see each tool and the version that it was last changed. Note that the JDBC driver last changed version is 9.2.0.0.
  • Rational Integration Tester can now connect to a WebSphere® Application Server that was configured with SSL Client Authentication of "Supported" without the need to specify an identity store.

What's new in Version 9.2

Mainframe technologies

  • The IMS Connect transport now supports the ability to use a forwarding proxy to assist with testing. See Creating the IMS Connect transport.
  • Rational Integration Tester now supports IMS Connect with IMS V12, V13, and V14, by using the Java API included in IBM IMS Enterprise Suite V2.1, V3.1, or V3.2. See Testing with IMS Connect.
  • Support for the Rational Integration Tester API exits for IBM WebSphere MQ on a HP-UX-Itanium (32-bit or 64-bit) system is withdrawn.

Service virtualization

Integrations

HTTP/TCP Proxy

  • In previous versions of Rational Integration Tester, Rational Integration Tester Agent and the Rational Integration Tester HTTP/TCP Proxy, logs by default were written to the home directory of the user that was running the component. This is now changed. By default log files are now output to a directory named logs underneath the corresponding component regardless of the user.

Performance tests

  • Starting in version 9.2, when you edit a performance test, system tags and environment tags can be entered by right-clicking within a field and selecting a tag from the Insert Tag option of the menu.

Transports

  • In previous releases of Integration Tester FIX admin messages other than Reject (3) were not propagated to tests or stubs. It is now possible to configure which admin messages out of Logon, Logout, and Reject are propagated to tests or stubs. See FIX Transport - Session details.
  • When Basic authentication is configured in an HTTP Transport the default behavior is to send the Authorization header when it is requested by the server. You can now configure a transport such that the header is sent preemptively. See Creating physical web server resources.
  • The IMS Connect transport now supports the ability to use a forwarding proxy to assist with testing. See Creating the IMS Connect transport.
  • In 9.2 the File transport can be used in a stub to consume from one or more files in a directory. It can continue to be used in subscribe and publish actions to consume from or write to a file. See Working with File transport.

Rational Test Control Panel

  • Rational Test Control Panel server instance name was changed from RTCPServer to defaultServer.
  • The technical experiment for Test Data Fabrication has ended. Thank you for all your feedback.

Installation

Other

  • A new function called LogToConsole was added that allows logging to the console in Test Lab from ECMA scripts and Legacy scripts. See Other functions.
  • Rational Integration Tester now supports the SWIFT 2018 MT messaging standard. See SWIFT messages.

System requirements

For system requirements specific to this release of Rational Test Workbench, see Software Product Compatibility Reports.

Installing Rational Integration Tester and Rational Test Control Panel 9.2

For information about the upgrade requirements, see: For instructions on installing, see:

Installing Rational Performance Test Server 9.2

For information about installation, see Installing Rational Performance Test Server.

Installing Rational Test Virtualization Server 9.2

For information about installation, see Installing Rational Test Virtualization Server.

Known problems

Known problems are documented in the download document for each product and in the form of individual technotes in the Support Knowledge Base:

Table 1. Download documents and technotes
Product Download document Knowledge Base
Rational Integration Tester http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24044520 http://www.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/all_troubleshooting_links/rational/rational_test_workbench?productContext=-1242920191
Rational Test Virtualization Server http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24044519 http://www.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/all_troubleshooting_links/rational/rational_test_virtualization_server?productContext=-1234805781
Rational Performance Test Server http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24044518 http://www.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/product/rational/rational_performance_test_server?productContext=-1563869467

The knowledge base is continually updated as problems are discovered and resolved. By searching the knowledge base, you can quickly find workarounds or solutions to problems.

Contacting IBM Software Support

IBM Software Support provides you with technical assistance.

For contact information and guidelines or reference materials that you will need when you require support, read the IBM Software Support Handbook.

For personalized support, including notifications of significant upgrades, register at http://www.ibm.com/support/mysupport/.

For Rational software product news, events, and other information, visit the IBM Products Web site.

Before you contact IBM Software Support, gather the background information that you will need to describe your problem. When describing a problem to an IBM software support specialist, be as specific as possible and include all relevant background information so that the specialist can help you solve the problem efficiently. To save time, know the answers to these questions:
  • What software versions were you running when the problem occurred?
  • Do you have logs, traces, or messages that are related to the problem?
  • Can you reproduce the problem? If so, what steps do you take to reproduce it?
  • Is there a workaround for the problem? If so, be prepared to describe the workaround.
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