Broadcom Service Virtualization Reviews

Service virtualization is the most valuable feature because we can create end-to-end services without actual hardware, so that saves a lot of cost and money.

We do application performance management or testing, where we have two options: Either we have to build an infrastructure end-to-end or we have to use the service virtualization capability that can mimic the actual endpoints, which makes it much easier for testing.

There is always room for improvement. Microservices are coming, and I don't know how microservices are going to be virtualized.

They still have a long way to go because service virtualization is a new area and there is a lot happening in this world. They have to keep building on their product and services for us to get it in the future. They have to adapt in more areas.

They already know what we are looking for. We asked them to support the MASL. They worked it out and then they provided us support. Other areas they can improve on are the scalability, failover capabilities, so that you don't have to depend upon a single instance of the server.

Stability’s pretty good so far. We have been using it for the last three years, so it's pretty good.

Stability’s one area that needs work; it's good, but the challenge is that scaling at a very high level is slightly problematic at this point in time. It meets our requirements so far, but I think they need to improve it.

Technical support are very proactive; we have very good support.

We did not previously use a different solution. We had a homegrown solution, and that was easy and cheaper, but the problem was maintaining that homegrown solution over a long period of time. It was quite an investment, so buying this product made sense.

When selecting a vendor, we look equally at the process and technology aspects, from end to end; what are the services they can provide.

My team did the initial setup, and it's pretty straightforward.

I don't want to disclose which vendors were on the short list, but there were a couple of vendors, and we found out that those products were not mature enough.

The keys feature of this product are:

• Workstation, where we can perform web service virtualization. That is primarily our focus, to enable the development and testing team.
• We are creating mocking and stopping for service virtualization.
• We are moving shift-left, meaning to carry out testing on the back-end which is not available. That's the main feature for this product.

My organization is looking at CA Agile, where this solution is available for the development and testing teams to enable their testing and provide a bug-free code.

We want to see more automation; an automated way of creating service virtualization without using the tool. That's the feature that we would like to see in the next release.

It is stable. We are using it in the Windows environment, so most of the time it's stable.

The product is scalable.

I would give the technical support a 50-50 rating, the reason being, for some of the custom solutions we have to depend on the tool. Thus, we have to enable and engage them for that implementation.

We didn’t have a previous solution for service virtualization. This is our first solution; we directly implemented it.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

I would advise others who are looking for a similar solution to go for this product.

The main criteria while selecting a vendor is being a market leader who is number one in providing a solution for the problems/issues, which we are currently facing. That's the reason why we chose CA as they are market leaders for the product.

The product is good but there is some improvement required such as an automated way for creating those features which we are awaiting in the next release.

It helps us to create service scripts for performing shift-left in our testing.

In the development environment during the early lifecycle, whenever there is a third-party interface that is not available, we use this product to create those steps that help us in getting responses, as and when needed.

It has helped us to shift-left in our testing life cycle.

We do start testing at an early stage in the development environment, even before it gets into QA.

Generally, for our agile development projects, most of the third-party interfaces or interfacing applications which are shared services such as middleware services are not available. This is when we use CA Service Virtualization for early testing. Once we get into the QA environment, we test with real interfaces.

This product provides an interface with current test management tools and that’s what we like about it.

However, we would like to see more interfaces with all open source platforms, especially in the CI/CD framework such as Jenkins, TFS tools.

It is very stable. We've been using it for quite some time.

This product is very scalable.

I have not interacted directly with technical support. We have our own team that is in charge of this aspect.

Previously, we did use HP Service Test and SoapUI software, but we find this solution to be more scalable and stable.

I was not involved in the initial setup process, since we have a setup team that takes care of this.

Not many people know that even in the development space, developers can utilize this solution to perform some of their unit testing, before they get into real interfaces. This awareness is not there in the market. We use this product in performance and functional testing, so probably even in unit testing the developers could use it. Thus, we would strongly recommend to explore this tool and its functionalities.

The most important criteria while choosing a vendor is primarily its performance track record in the market and the range of solutions they provide across lifecycles. Another important aspect is the ability to interface with multiple solutions that are available in the market.

The features that I find most useful would be how easy it is to quickly get something up and running as a small test sample. The first test we had was simple transactions to it and emulating responses from there. We have Java and .NET APIs that we use to access the legacy system. Dev test works by hijacking the code and then you put an agent in it.

Also, it looks to see what classes you're calling. You can say, okay, if it hits this class, then I want to know. Then, the data that comes through there, you can analyze it and you can replay that data -- Java, .NET, or C#.

I wouldn't say that there's a tremendous amount that could use improvement. I think that with applications like this, it's easy to use it for the wrong reasons. Early on, I think we had ideas about leveraging it in places where it wasn't a good fit for us, where it wasn't going to have a large impact. We had to have a bit of guidance from CA as to where we should be focusing. After that, it wasn't as much of a problem. There are some interactions with customers, depending on what they use. Where maybe we were thinking about doing something that was more internal, but didn't make a tremendous amount of sense for us. There was a case where we tried to virtualize too much. There are limits to what can be done in that kind of testing. It's easy to just take the tool and go virtualize something that you really didn't need to virtualize.

It does require a higher level of support. This is not the kind of tool that you can just haul off just go make decisions on. You need some understanding as to what the right move is and I think CA's the only group that's going to be able to help you with that.

We haven't been using it extensively yet, as we're still in the POC phase, but the POC's that we've run through have been pretty easy to set up. We haven't had a truly deep dive. We've been fairly impressed with it just initially. What we're doing is we're trying to emulate connectivity from a legacy-backing system.

We're a little too early on to be able to comment on that yet.

There was no problem. We did our own setup just for our POC and it was no problem.

With not much other knowledge than maybe two days of training at CA, we were able to go in there and hook it up to our application that writes out to the legacy system, intercept the data that was going in, store that, and then virtualize the response. We did all of that within four hours.

It was decided at the enterprise level well before I got involved.

I guess to sum up, you will need to engage with CA to understand what the right virtualization is, to ensure that you're not wasting your time.

I would say that you need to have good buy-in at the enterprise level, you need to have good buy-in at your director-plus level.

The primary use case of this solution is for creating virtual services, creating API testing, and creating virtual data.

The most valuable features are the recording and creating of virtual services. Especially in creating IBM MQ virtual services through recording.

The learning curve is an area that needs improvement, as well as stability and performance.

Stability has to be improved. It is not a stable solution. Especially, when you create custom solutions there are issues with memory accumulation. I would prefer that they stop adding features, which is what they do. Instead, focus on stabilizing it and make it work. 

What's the point of adding new features? It just increases the cost.

I'll give you an example; CA and I have continuous applications, and insight is one of the service activation components. It has never worked in any project, just for the namesake and for showing they have this one. 

Support needs improvement, they don't support the migration from an older version to the current version.

The price can be reduced.

This portal, after one week, if it is enterprise-assigned, will stop working. Now we have a policy that every week, we have a scheduled restart of everything, and maintain it. The stability is so poor that this is what is required. 

Broadcom acquired it recently, approximately a year ago. Broadcom was not involved with the software before. They were known for having a history with the hardware, physical devices, and appliances. 

Now, they are focusing on both. Much of their technical expertise, have gone. There is no expertise.

I have been working with Broadcom Service Virtualization for approximately five years.

It's not stable.

This solution is scalable, but it also relies on the stability factor.

If the client wants to add a new component or new hardware, it can be done, but for how long will it be stable? It will not be stable. 

I'll add it to a new sequence in the virtual environment. When it's added, the port will not display and we have to reset everything.

After everything is added there is a new challenge. With the amount of data that it has to handle it causes memory leak issues. The memory accumulation usually happens and then it gets stopped, then has to be restarted. 

Stability is still a huge issue. In one way we have a solution that scales, with provisions that are easy for scaling, but the stability is not there.

It's scalable, but as you scale you will encounter stability issues.

The technical support only supports recent versions, even if there are some critical issues.

For example, I was in 10.1. and now using the current version 10.6, but they have stopped supporting 10.1. When I had to migrate from 10.1 to 10.6, we had experienced some issues.

When contacting technical support they don't support the migration, because it's internal, and they ended our support. Once the support is ended for 10.1, you can't get it back.

The support and questions are tool-related, only. If there are some that are at a project level that we may have customized then they say it's beyond their support. At this point, it would require separate tools and advanced services. This would also incur an additional fee. 

For simple issues with current versions and for managing the tool, or for learning the tool, then technical support available. 

For project level and implementations, the technical support is not good.

Previously, I was using SoapUI for creating MockServices. I have also used WireMock. These two tools I have used.

Comparing to those, the differences are that both version services can be run locally.

I am a developer and I can create a local virtual service. I can create and deploy to a central location, which can avoid a lot of duplication. That is the key difference. 

Other tools for creating a stable service require some effort. Here, the new creation is managed.

The most recent version is not simple.

It's not easy and especially when you want to set up a distributed architecture, it gets a bit complex. For that, also, when we need something complex then true expertise is needed.

I am the specialist and a part of the team for managing this solution.

We implemented it ourselves with the occasional help from CA support.

There are additional fees for advanced-level technical support.

Our services are offered to all of our clients. Once they have purchased the product, we offer services and centrally configure this for others who have this feature. It's free. Instead of each and every project team buying their own products, we centrally buy it, we centrally manage the environment, and we provide it to the rest of the teams. This provides a way of cost-cutting and interacting.

This solution is definitely for large enterprise companies, not suitable for a small or medium-sized company. With large enterprise companies, we can use freeware tools. There are several freeware tools available.

Complex protocols are also available and can be applied only for large enterprise companies.

My recommendations are that this solution is best suited for large organizations and for internally running their referral services. If you want, the requirements are simple.

You can use the freeware that is available. Or, if you want to use it for a central log, then use it, develop and enhance it more. The development technicians will assist you if you want to run this securely as a centralized enterprise-level solution.

I would recommend this solution for large organizations. Nonetheless, they have to make a lot of improvements.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

The ability to do parallel development and testing reduces our costs for duplicating environments, improving the productivity of our developers, and bringing products faster to market. 

As far as the next version of it is concerned, probably some additional lightweight, portable elements. For instance, we would like to not have to rely on deploying things to a server, be able to carry it and make it more portable (maybe through the mobile devices), etc. Some of the mobility aspects are what we are looking for, and I do not mean running it on a mobile device when I say mobility, but being able to port it between workstations, and being able to take it and work with it at a smaller scale.

It is a very stable product given that by the time we got into it. We were in version 9.x, but it looks like about 10 years has elapsed between the time the product came out and where it is now. That ought to provide it some sense of stability, and also some guidance as to what the company needs to do to make it a stable product. 

It is definitely scalable. The licenses that we have purchased, we have not utilized them fully. However, given our conversations with the CA product team and the use cases that we have outlined for them, we are pretty confident that it is scalable.

We actually stumbled upon it both in terms of good luck and prior experience. Prior experience, not from our perspective, but from one of our VPs, who happen to work at CA before he came to our organization. Combined with a need from us to not invest in additional development environments for some of our flow-through work, where applications needed to talk to multiple other systems. Also, when we were working on multiple projects, we had a need to duplicate those environments, which resulted in having to spend extra money on it. 

What we stumbled upon was the Service Virtualization tool that our previous VP had worked with, remembered about it, and we started investigating, which led to our investment in the product. 

I would definitely rate it as a nine. Simply because I think any product obviously has some inherent flaws in it. That is the reason why they are upgraded. It would be foolish to say it is a 10 right off the bat. 

Service virtualization is the most valuable feature for us because there are fewer constraints through the SDLC cycle. It really helped us to remove bottlenecks and expedite the test time.

It helps with parallel testing. With all the development happening, the sub-systems are not available completely. By virtualizing those systems and services, we are able to deliver our product quickly.

The one main thing we want to see is more on the reporting side. That's the one thing that we're missing. We need more detailed reporting. In particular with some of the integration, we want to see more detailed reports so that we can drill down to more scenarios.

So far, with the last few projects, it is quite stable.

The scalability is good. We are still new with it, but in terms of scalability, it is working right as it's supposed to.

We have used technical support. There were really good. I would give them a 10/10 rating as they really helped us be our best.

We got introduced to the CA sales people via our other company. The vendor came in to introduce the product. After looking at it, we found that it fit to our needs. We were struggling with a lot of gaps in our SDLC and so we decided to do a PoC, and it worked out.

For us, the most important factor while selecting a vendor was the continued customer support. CA was able to give us the professional environment and continued support.

I was a part of the setup. However, I have the other group who carried out the process. It was quite straightforward because I was with them at the time.

We did not look at other vendors. CA happened to be the first one.

We are using this program, so I would try to use it the same way, This is not to advertise, but educate others. If you see any constraint in your testing or deployment, this solution can really help you in moving forward

• Codeless testing: There are no test scripts to write and maintain in DevTest. It helps to easily design test scripts without any programming knowledge.
• Complete test coverage for heterogeneous, distributed architectures: in a single test environment, DevTest invokes and verifies functionality at every layer of the application - from dynamic web UIs, to web services, ESB/JMS messaging layers, EJB servers, Java objects, databases, file systems, legacy objects and much more.
• Service Virtualization: Virtualization reduces the dependency of third-party services/system and allows us shift-left testing.

Our application requires the integration of many services across many APIs both internal and external. Due to this increased complexity, it is important that the testing of complex systems also starts early as possible. Leaving the testing until the end of product delivery increases project risk and the cost of fixing any defects found during later development stage. Using the power of CA Service Virtualization, it is now possible to perform integration testing on every application build. For application components still under development, service virtualization allows integration testing to occur even earlier in the development cycle simulating the missing parts of the system. Service virtualization also allows driving of error scenarios from both internal and external systems that may be hard or even impossible to produce, even with the real systems.

They still need to improve the reporting functionality for better customization. Currently the report functionality does not allow us to go beyond 5000 records where the display show all the records also more filters needs to provide to generate/customize test reports.

I've been using DevTest 8.4 and Application Insight. 8.4 for the last five years.

There were no issues with the deployment.

There have been no issues with the stability.

There have been no issues scaling it.

The customer service is excellent.

The technical support is excellent.

For API test previously I used Selenium. To create/maintain a test script in Selenium Java coding is required. With DevTest, Java programming knowledge is not mandatory. We can do most of the things using in built DevTest assertions and filters without any scripting.

Setup/installation is straightforward. The product installation guide helps lot.

We did it in-house. We have our own product expert team for implementation.

The CA community will help us with any difficulties with the implementation. You can find it https://communities.ca.com/places.