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IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for Transactions
~ How to do stuff ~
By Kevin Baldwin -

How to.....
Run Rational Robot scripts in an ITCAMfT 7.4 environment.
Alternatively, consider changing to RFT or RPT .


Please note...

The End of Support (EoS) date for ITCAMfT 7.3.0.x is 30th April 2017.
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/support/lifecycleapp/PLCSearch.wss?q=composite+transactions+7&ibm-search=Search

When support for ITCAMfT 7.3 ends so will support for running Rational Robot scripts in the ITCAMfT 7.4 environment described below.
 

If you want to run Rational Robot scripts in an ITCAMfT 7.4 environment you need to use ITCAMfT 7.3.0.1 RRT agents. This is the last T6 version to support Rational Robot playback and is validated to work in an ITCAM for Transactions 7.4 environment.

The most recent version of Rational Robot supported by ITCAMfT for playback on ITCAMfT 7.3.0.1 RRT agents in an ITCAMfT 7.4 environment is Rational Robot 7.0.2

ITCAMfT 7.3.0.1 T6 agents used to run Rational Robot playbacks must not be used to run other script types (e.g. RPT and RFT scripts). These should be played back on v7.4x T6 agents.

Please note...

Support for running Rational Robot scripts in this way is no longer supported after 30th April 2017.
 

The only Rational products supported for use on ITCAMfT 7.4 agents are Rational Performance Tester (RPT) and Rational Functional Tester (RFT).

You may find the following information useful in helping you decide which Rational software is most suitable for performing the old Rational Robot monitoring tasks.

There isn't a migration path for Rational Robot scripts to RFT or RPT, the actions currently performed in Rational Robot will have to recorded in either RPT or RFT.

Here's why:

• When a Robot script is auto-instrumented, ARM code is physically added to the scripts. Alternatively, you could manually add the ARM calls and custom code could be added to manage the way errors and verification point failures are handled. For example, ending the script run with an ARM_FAILED when a VP fails.
   
• ARM instrumentation of RFT and RPT is completely different to the method used in Rational Robot.
   
• ARM instrumentation for RFT and RPT scripts does not directly alter the recorded scripts and it is not possible to manually add ARM instrumentation.
   
• RFT and RPT manage Response Times and Verification Points in different ways.
   

Available options:

Rational Performance Tester - RPT

RPT is used to monitor HTTP or HTTPS web applications, SAP, Siebel, or Citrix applications.

RPT Workbench does not need to be installed on playback agents.

By default,  playbacks run concurrently in the background and Response Time Breakdown is enabled for all pages and objects in the recording.

Instead of using Start and Stop timers, you can group items together to create nested response time measurements.

Prior to RPT 8.2, if a Verification Point failed the script would continue to run to the end unless manual changes are made to the recording to alter this behaviour. With newer versions of RPT it is possible to easily specify a number of different actions when a VP fails. For example, Stop script execution or skip to next primary page.

Take a look at Adding Conditional Logic and Specifying error-handling behavior to see how this is done.
 

Rational Functional Tester - RFT

RFT is used to monitor applications not covered by RPT for functional testing, regression testing, GUI testing, and data-driven testing.

Like Robot, RFT has to be installed on playback agents and relies on desktop interaction to visibly run playbacks one at a time.

You can add start and stop timers during script development as described in the Using timer commands to define subtransactions in RFT scripts blog.

When played back on an agent, ARM Start and Stop calls are made corresponding to the RFT timerStart and timerStop commands.

For nested timers to work correctly you need to use RFT 8.2.0.2. + IF01 or higher

If a Verification Point fails the script will continue to run to the end unless manual changes are made to the recording to alter this behaviour.

RFT does not have the same type of automated error-handling found in RPT but if is possible to add conditional logic as described in the Inserting conditional statements section of RFT documentation.

Another source of useful information is this Testing Using Rational Robot versus Rational Functional Tester  developerWorks article.
 

Visit the ITCAM for Transactions ~ How to do stuff ~ Homepage for more blogs in this series