BMC AMI DevX vs. IBM DevOps Test Performance

I'm not sure what scenario it would not be suitable for. I have it up all day, though I do use the mainframe emulator to go back to the old 'green screen'. We have tools that we must use there. There is very little I can't do on the workbench. I'm trying to get some of our new developers to use it, as when I'm using it and talking to them on the phone, they don't know what I'm talking about.

Incentivized

Go for IBM RPT if: 1. You're testing a Java-based Web application with HTTP protocol 2. You wanted to distribute the load across machines easily 3. Your team is in learning phase/not really introduced to a wide range of performance testing tools Do not go for IBM RPT if: 1. You wanted to test REST or any other advanced protocols 2. Your system under test demands a very high user load 3. Your application is written in .NET or any other platform except Java.

Incentivized

• Extract/load data from one DB or table to another masking the data for testing.
• Compare extracts against each other to ensure good baselines.

Incentivized

• Live Monitoring of Performance Testing Metrics
• Easier Test Data Parameterization
• Performance Tests Scheduler
• Server Resource Monitoring
• Great Reports that can be Exported as HTML Reports

• We use CA Librarian here, and the workbench doesn't play well with that. I can't view the library my source is in; I have to copy it to a PDS.
• I frequently make some copies of files on my own. I do each file at a time. The ability to create a macro to do all of them at once would be nice. Currently, I click the file and click 'copy to', then fill out the info for each file.

Incentivized

• Memory utilization could have been improved.(Eats up system's RAM)! It may crash if a test is conducted with the heavy load if adequate RAM is not available in the VM/host machine.
• Licensing could have been made simpler. IBM's licensing method is difficult to follow.
• Support for protocols other than HTTP. Not really up to the current trend.

Incentivized

Support has been amazing compared to Optim. Further, new features are very regular with File-AID - I can't remember the last time Optim had a significant update. File-AID support is very receptive to feature requests and reported bugs, including sending out hotfixes quickly.

Incentivized

Optim is more user friendly in how it operates, in my opinion. It's less obtuse to figure out how to extract and mask the data required compared to File-AID. Further, Optim is easier to gather related tables, by far. I do prefer using File-AID via the Topaz GUI much more than using Optim via its GUI. Finally, I personally believe that File-AID is significantly faster to run than Optim - this could be a configuration issue.

Incentivized

IBM Rational Performance Tester is better in many aspects when compared to Apache JMeter. For example, you have ready made scripts to assist you, You have better monitoring of different performance metrics and can generate better reports that can be exported as HTML. The only downside of IBM RPT is that it can be very costly at times while JMeter is for free which is a huge advantage. That's why we try using in our organization a combination of both as much as we can.

• I can debug (expeditor) much faster and more efficiently. In fact, I was asked yesterday to run their job through Workbench Expeditor. I can also view data movement much better.
• Code analysis lets me give a quicker explanation of what a program may do, as it provides a graphical interface showing processing and data movement.

Incentivized

• Accuracy in metrics, thus improving system's performance
• Costs less compared to competitor like HP LoadRunner
• Helped the team of beginners learn things quickly

Incentivized