Broadcom Service Virtualization Reviews

We use it for service virtualization. It is performing well. 

Unit testing or early life testing did not have to be stopped or delayed because those services were not available. So, they can continue testing using this capability, whether those services are available or not.

It performs as advertised. We had a number of back-end services that were not available during testing times. What this had allowed us to do is get our early life testing done while those services are not available. 

We had to implement an external service catalog. We put it in ServiceNow. I would like to see an integrated service catalog. 

What we have done is put redundant systems in, so it is stable. We are on-premise, so we are not using the cloud version of Service Virtualization. 

It is as available as we can make it in our E2 environments.

It does scale up.

We had some on-premise support when we first implemented it, and they were excellent. We had some training for the product when we first implemented and that was excellent. We could not have been as successful, I don't believe without it either, because we had very complex environments early on in our DevOps journey. This was the first thing we were trying to automate back in 2011, so if we had it to do over again, we probably would not have done Service Virtualization first. However, with the implementation help and the training, we ultimately were successful.

We bought Service Virtualization because we are in a DevOps journey. If you are in need of services that are not available, you need to have a solution. 

I was the product manager that rolled it out to our enterprise. It was very complex.

CA was learning the product at the same time we were learning the product. CA had just bought the product from ITKO LISA (or acquired ITKO LISA). At the time, it did not have enterprise characteristics, since then CA has been able to bring to a large company as far as management capability, security, and things of that nature. When we were implementing it, it did not have that, but it does now. 

Upgrades are straightforward from a CA perspective. They are complex from our company perspective, and that is mostly self-inflicted. 

We did do a bake-off. We looked at three tools and CA was the best. Therefore, CA/ITKO was the choice.

You have to go check this tool out.

The innovation is amazing. CA has continued to add to services that it supports, the transports that it supports, and has built all of the enterprise capabilities into the product as well.

Most important criteria when a selecting a vendor: service and support. Pricing is right up there, too.

For service virtualization, you can have continuous testing and development without interruption to your test cycle. For dev test, I been able to customize to being able to test, automate batch testing, and integrate that with my API testing and UI testing. I have been able to use that as an integrator. I have had no issues with integration. We have been able to use custom code to integrate the pieces so we really haven't had too many problems with it.

It's giving us a base start to add some customer framework so that we all behave in the same manner. For example, we've integrated it with Jenkins. We started to use the invoke XML results to integrate with other services to show us results. We can do that in Jenkins or we can do that with some custom visibility tools that we're building.

See below.

In terms of stability, I have to restart it every day. We set it on job and we just restart it every day. Otherwise, it seems to go down.

My team uses technical support. We have had problems with the upgrades. This is because we are on a Linux server and not on Windows. Those upgrades don't tend to go smoothly. We usually just involve somebody from the tech team right away, and just have them go through the upgrade with us. They are very supportive. They're at least a part of the experience. Unfortunately, it hasn't stopped us from running into problems, but at least we have somebody there to deal with the problems for the upgrade. We had to slog through our last upgrade, and we lost our database. We lost our history, which was pretty annoying.

I was involved in the initial setup of the service virtualization. We stood up our own Linux server. The setup was pretty out of the box. It wasn’t difficult. Our developers, though, want it to be easier. They don't like to use it. they want it to be easy to set up.

I would like to see some kind of dashboard that shows all of the dev test scripts that we have out there so that that we don’t have to rewrite the same ones across the enterprise. We can look to see what's there and reuse some of the ones that are there. Right now, it's hard to figure out what we have.

I would like to have some way to enable developers to use it more. They tend to like to go to JMeter before they do a dev test. The developers don’t need the UI and all the overhead that goes along with that. They already understand how to virtualize. I think it's a great tool, but it seems a little thick and heavy and it's very expensive. I think we are able to find open source solutions that do similar things. What I have found that I like is that I can use it to do my out-of-the-box things, like my batch testing and integrate some of my other tests and inflow that I don't get from other tools.

Give it a try.

The virtualization options in the product: We can now virtualize entire backend systems or chains. That makes test and acceptance environments much more readily available, which offers more testing possibilities that results in better quality.

Our supply chain applications became available for more than 70% of the time compared to 25% before we started using LISA.

I would like to see better GUI testing possibilities.

It only supports web testing by working with Selenium: DevTest is positioned as a test automation tool. People want to use it as that, but then they find out it needs Selenium with all the downsides of that. We also have a couple of client applications they can’t be tested at all with DevTest/Selenium.

Beyond that, you need a lot of ports to be opened to enable working with it. That introduces a lot of problems trying to use it, especially the database connection from the client. A solution would be to add all of the functionality to the webclient.

The full client needs a database connection. That is a problem for us, because that is not allowed anymore.

I have used it for eight years. I started with LISA 5 just for virtualization, which is still the most powerful functionality. We have CA DevTest (LISA) version 8.4 in a semi-production environment. We are currently upgrading to version 9.5 to replace all of these.

You need a lot of servers in advanced datacenters because of security regulations. Opening a lot of ports from a lot of IP addresses to one server is not allowed. Multiple VSEs is the solution, but introduces more installation problems.

Sales and pre-sales support work very good. They are willing to help make more use of the products without wanting to sell more licenses (at least they don’t appear that way).

The support is pretty good. I don’t have direct contact but from our MSP, I get the impression that their questions are handled properly.

I did not previously use a different solution. At the time we started in 2009, this was the only solution.

With version 6, everything needed to be centralized. Now with 9.5, it can be decentralized. It is pretty complex, because it violates all kinds of security regulations at the network datacenter level.

We did this with Systemation, a local company with expert knowledge of LISA/DevTest.

My advice is to work together with the network/datacenter guys from the start.

We didn’t calculate the ROI. We started this to save test environment costs, but we ended up with more testing and better quality.

Pricing/licenses are very expensive, especially performance VSE, which is kind of foolish, especially if you use DevTest as a test driver too. You’ll pay for the vuser bundle and for the VSE.

Set up a central maintenance team, a CoE, but let the users use it themselves. That way, you’ll get more value out of the investment.

The product is easy to use and offers lots of functionalities. This product also supports the most protocols, compared to its competitors.

Service Virtualization allows you to function in an isolated manner. It allows you to not be so dependent on systems that, in traditional testing, causes you delays, causes impacts to your overall time testing schedule, and just creates an efficiency in your overall process. It allows you to duplicate those systems or mimic them in a way that just creates greater efficiency and increases time to market overall.

The biggest thing, the huge time to market gain. The other thing is just financial efficiency. We're seeing huge financial gains in terms of using the tools. One of the biggest things that I like about the CA products is they do what they say they're going to do. From financials, we're seeing millions of dollars worth of savings. We're also seeing time to market gains, just based on the fact that we're not dependent or delayed by back end systems and other environments that traditionally caused us delays.

I think some of the monitoring capabilities could be enhanced. Those aren't necessarily major gaps for us, but I think that would be good. Just some of the real time monitoring and reporting capabilities. Some of the solutions that we've had to create weren't necessarily out of the box. They were successful and again, CA supported them. Some of the reporting capabilities would be good. Additionally, when you're starting to identify your value ads, some of that reporting would help in identifying and calculating your savings.

It does what it says it's going to do. It's a very stable platform. The initial installation and coming in and bringing it into your organization, it can be a little disruptive, but once you create some real strategies around how to deploy the solution in your platform, the gains far out weight what the delays would have been or the challenges would have been in getting it up and going.

It scales wonderfully. We've scaled it from doing isolated projects, one or two projects in terms of our pilots and proof of concepts, to putting it in an organization as an enterprise solution going across huge organizations with millions of hits to the actual platform.

The technical support is great. They're very responsive. Even on top of that, the resources that CA provides, whether it's your account director, your strategist, your sales people, are also very supportive. They're there when you need them. I've called them at seven in the morning, I've called them at ten at night. I've never had an issue getting the right people engaged when I needed them. They also are really supportive of providing escalations when need be. In some of their platforms that are even growing and migrating, if they need to enhance their solutions to fit your needs, they're also there to do that and support you.

Prior to engaging with CA, I had identified the need. In terms of needing to isolate myself from both data environments, back end systems. I knew I needed to do it. I had actually started on a personal journey, working with a couple of other vendor companies to try to figure out if we could actually build the solution. At that point, I was introduced to someone from CA and the initial LISA product, as it was called at the time. That product matched exactly what we needed at the time. It was a match made in heaven at that point. We started down the journey at that point.

There were definitely other vendors on our short list. They all had quality or decent products. Where they fell short was on the service side, which is why I pushed for the CA solution. Backend services, web services, is its primary function. We also use it for some MQ services.

We initially started with a small proof of concept. For a product like this, that's what you would normally do. With that proof of concept being successful, we migrated to supporting an entire organization within the bank that I was working at at the time. We took that solution from there to actually doing an enterprise deal and now pushing it across the entire company.

The product is obviously key. You want a product that meets the needs that you have. The other thing is the service that I get provided by those people that are coming in. Whether it's the sales or some of the pre-sales folks that are coming in. The support that I'm getting from them, the responsiveness that I'm getting from that, is critical. If you don't have a company that's going to be good to you when they're trying to sell something to you, they're not going to be good to you when they're supporting you later. That's all obviously been key for me.

In terms of the value that we were able to get out of the tool, I would definitely probably give it a nine. The only reason I wouldn't push for a ten is ... When we initially got the product, we were growing and the product was growing at the same time, so there were some things that had to be tweaked and some support we needed that wouldn't have made it a ten out of the box tool. I would say where we got it and the way we were able to use it, that definitely pushed it to a ten. Out of the box, I would say I felt like it was a strong nine product.

I would say if you've had the engagement with the CA tool and you've heard the sales presentations and you've heard all the hoopla about what the tool will do, know that what they say it will do, it does. It does it very well. From a market standpoint, it does it as a market leader. Overall, I haven't had any complaints with the tool in terms of the organizations that we've deployed the tool, they love what the tool has done for them in terms of their development, their development cycles, and the quality of the testing and the coding they've been able to do using the tool.

Not in terms of comparing it with a different solution, but realize that it is a disruptive tool in terms of the initial deployment. They need to understand it's going to take some heavy lifting. If their philosophy on deploying a tool is stand it up and everybody's going to come to you and want to use it, that's a poor solution and poor thought process. It is a tool that you're going to have to actively work to deploy. If you put together a strategy around deploying the tool and you do the work, the tool will get you the gains and the advantages and the saving that you're looking for in your organization.

I think it's great to hear what the industry is saying, what peers in the industry are saying is important. Some of our pain points generally are about the same. If they're showing how they can use the tool, how it's be successful for them, it is definitely something I want to hear.

Virtualization.

I have used CA LISA in two organizations. In the first one, we were leveraging the virtualization capabilities to fill gaps with the middleware software for an ESB application. This enable the test teams to start earlier before the hardware and applications were fully ready for test.

The product is very robust and is obviously one of the front runners in the service virtualization space. Competitors have more user friendly user interfaces and some have front end systems which are easy to toggle and manipulate.

I have said many times that CA LISA is more of a technical programmer's tool, whereas their competitors are appealing both to the programmers as well as the basic user/business user/tester.

I've used it for three years.

No issues experienced.

No issues encountered.

No, as compared to competitors, studies have shown that CA seems more scalable, although for the average consumer of the products, they are all head-to-head.

While I have heard stories of varied levels of good and bad customer service from various clients, I have only experienced great support from CA.

8/10.

I have used both CA LISA as well as one of their competitors. When the competitor was chosen, it was due to overall capabilities and needs of the client, the cost, and the long term capabilities.

Their competitor offered an enterprise solution, whereas CA's costs was user-license based, and since the client wasn't sure of how many users we would scale to within a year, it was a better choice to go with the competitor.

The initial setup was easy and occurred within 1 full day, including configuration and full setup.

This was done with CA professional services and onsite training. CA provides very good support for their product, and was extremely helpful in both of the organizations where I installed the product.

When you look at pricing, it is important to understand what you specifically need. The CA LISA/Virtualization product has various types of licenses. If you go with the super user license, you get all of the access, but you have to ask yourself if you really need all of the capabilities. And even if you do, you likely only need one or two licenses. The rest can have the standard user license.

Reviewed options with Parasoft Virtualize and HP's virtualization tools.

It gives us the ability to simulate and virtualize components that we don’t currently have. This is invaluable.

At the moment, we are still rolling out elements of the product. But we can already see that it gives us capabilities we haven’t had before, and we are very happy with it.

We had a complex initial setup in our environment, but CA helped us with it.

We have no issues deploying it.

So far, it has stood up really well; no issues at all with stability.

We have not gone down the scalability path yet, but hopefully next year we will when it becomes relevant.

The technical support team is very smart. We had a CA architect come to us to help jump start the operation. We were pleased because he learned our business and helped us get the solution off the ground.

We previously used a different solution. We switched because there was a gap in our testing which we needed to fill in.

Getting it working in our particular environment was complex.

We looked at HPE, but ultimately we chose CA because they were able to meet our challenges. My biggest point was to prove it in our environment. CA stepped up and did a proof of concept. It took six months and we gave them the biggest challenge and they figured it out.

My advice would be to look at the solution in detail, as it can fill a big gap in your testing. It, of course, does require tech knowledge to work, but for what it delivers, it’s worth it.

For us, the most valuable feature is that it gives us the ability to virtualize a lot of our integrated systems. That’s valuable because we have difficulty trying to coordinate all those different systems in terms of scheduling, timing, refreshing of data, and that type of things. It gives the developers freedom to develop without needing to wait for others; so it eliminates bottlenecks for us.

We were having a lot of bottlenecks in our development process. Developers were waiting around for somebody else to finish and that helped alleviate that.

I don't think we've gotten enough experience with this version to talk about what should be in the next version.

It could be easier to setup and to deploy.

We have just started with the product. We're probably about six months in.

We haven’t noticed any stability issues.

Technical support was responsive. They did a good job.

The initial setup was straightforward. It required training, but it was straightforward after the training. The training helped get us off the ground.

We did not have a solution before. We went with CA Service Virtualization because of their ability to have a long-term customer relationship, and the ability to work with us to get the product off the ground.

Get your business partners on board. Do an ROI analysis where you can actually have concrete use cases to sell the value of the product.

The most valuable feature for us is that it provides configuration settings to make connections to the DB and web services. Because it has pre-written code exposed through an UI, it makes it much easier to configure tests.

It's helped with our automation testing.

• UI testing could be improved.
• Also, it should have predefined plug-ins to integrate with other automation tools to help in tool-chain enablement.

We've used it for four years.

There were no issues with deployment.

Although the initial products were highly unstable, there is still room for improvement in versions 7.5/8/10.

It's scalable in terms of running a performance test because it supports limited virtual users.

5/10 - The worst thing is the training provided by iTKO/CA as it's very costly and not comprehensive.

7/10

We previously used SoapUI and this is much easier to configure.

The initial setup was straightforward.

ROI typically comes over a longer duration (both Service Virtualization and Release Automation), although its significant in terms of overall project cost when taking into account hardware, testing delays, and third-party dependencies.

It’s very expensive and to really come out with an ROI, it takes years.

We compared it to our existing solution at the time, SoapUI.

It’s a good product, but comes with a hefty cost. If there is a better licensing/cost negotiation, then it can work, otherwise it’s not a viable solution. Some of the in-house products can beat this with limited cost investment.