Mindreef

Mindreef Version 6.2 is here!

The newest version of the SOAPscope Server product family -- SOAPscope Server, SOAPscope Architect, SOAPscope Developer, and SOAPscope Tester -- is now available on our website.  Version 6.2 products have been improved with new enhancements and fixes, including these:

~ Load Check capacity has been increased to provide more load generating capability, up to 100 simultaneous threads/users for most applications, using SOAPscope Server and SOAPscope Tester.

~ Understand the impact of the test tool on test results, by monitoring key system metrics like overall CPU utilization and JVM memory (used and available) in SOAPscope Server and SOAPscope Tester.

~ Improve security of shared assets with SSL Encryption in SOAPscope Server.

~ PDF reports generated from policy checking provide a valuable mechanism for easily reporting policy violations or proving policy compliance (available in all 6.2 products).

~ "Assertion Operators" give you the ability to make more complex response assertions in Scenario Tests. You can use assertion operators other than "=" to compare expected values with actual test response values to further automate functional and performance testing (in all 6.2 products).

~ Added rules R1012 and R1018 to WS-I 1.1 + SOAP Binding 1.0 profile.

~ And more!

For a complete list of updates and fixes, please visit this page.

~ Want to add real-world volume Load Testing to your Web services and SOA testing efforts?
 
~ Need Policy Authoring for your Architects?

~ Are you ready to drive SOA quality across your entire team?

Annual subscriptions are available on our website or contact our Sales team at 603-465-2204 x581 to inquire about volume purchases and perpetual licensing!

TrendWatch! 

Bloggers Unite: Support for Mindreef Acquisition

Award-winning journalist and blogger, Loraine Lawson, credits MomentumSI for keeping a watchful eye on consolidation in the SOA market - including Progress Software's latest move to acquire Mindreef. She notes that "so far, pundits and analysts seem to like the acquisition," and that as SOA changes the way we think of and consume IT capabilities, "to do so in an environment of high quality requires a robust platform..."  [READ more from "Progress Software Buys Again - This Time, It's Mindreef."]

Progress Software Acquires Mindreef

United Business Media's Antone Gonsalves takes a closer look at Progress Software's recent acquisition of Mindreef, which was revealed days after the company announced plans to buy Iona Technologies in order to "expand its SOA product offerings...." [READ more from "Progress Buys Two SOA Tool Vendors in Two Days."]

How IT Can Deliver Success in a Downturn

Financial Times Online recently asked for reader input about measures that IT departments can take to deliver success in an economic downturn. Suggestions included evaluating what is "mission critical," as well as re-examining your main business processes and optimizing or eliminating services as needed. Giles Nelson of Progress Software points out that SOA "can be your savior...." [READ more from "How Can IT Deliver Success in a Downturn" (may require registration to view).]

Welcome from Frank Grossman

As someone who has reached out to us before, you've probably heard, either through our outreach or just by seeing the press or reading the SOA blogs, that Mindreef was recently acquired by Progress Software.  The Mindreef team and I are very excited to be a part of the Progress team, and part of their growing SOA product line. We've got great plans for advancing SOA quality, governance and management as part of the Progress family.  And we know you'll like what you learn about Progress. 

To that end, let me introduce Dan Foody, the Vice President of Actional Products at Progress Software.  Dan and I, and the Actional and Mindreef teams, have been working together for years now as technology partners.  Now as we become joined under the Progress umbrella, I'd like to yield the rest of this month's Welcome column to Dan to tell you a bit about himself, Actional, and his vision for how the combination of Mindreef and Actional can help propel your SOA project success. 

Until next issue,

Welcome from Dan Foody

Welcome to Mindreef Matters! You've no doubt heard by now that Mindreef has been acquired by Progress.  And so I was asked to write today's welcome to provide a bit of insight into this big event. First, let me touch on a few important points before I go on: we acquired Mindreef because of the strength of the products and the team.  Our intent is to continue to add value to the Mindreef products you're familiar with - but also to leverage the strengths of the Mindreef technology in many other ways.

With that covered, let me tell you a bit about who I am, and what that has to do with Mindreef.  I'm one of the founders of Actional - another Progress acquisition - and I run the Actional product unit.  Actional was one of the first companies in Web service and SOA Management (or maybe you think of it as runtime governance) and Forrester Research currently ranks Actional as having the best current offering in the space.  We began partnering with Mindreef years ago - I think it was back in 2003 if I recall. If you've read my blog:
(http://blogs.progress.com/soa_infrastructure/dan_foody/), you'll probably have seen some of this already, but we've worked with Mindreef from its early days. So, I've seen a lot of the enhancements and innovations that the Mindreef team has produced over the years firsthand.  If I had to sum up what I really like about Mindreef, I think there are two key things that come to the top of my list: how Mindreef makes working with services so easy - no simple feat - and how SOAPscope Server enables collaboration between different SOA stakeholders - something that's essential to get the full benefit of SOA.

But, enough reminiscing. Now let's talk about quality - and how Mindreef coming together with Actional brings this to the next level.  If you've been subscribed to this newsletter for a while, there's one thing I'm sure you know: it isn't enough to think of SOA quality as a role - a job for one team.  You need to think of SOA quality as a responsibility - a responsibility that applies to every stakeholder involved in delivery a service.  Because new consumers can come onboard at any time, and because services need to be versioned without bringing consumers offline, the old way of thinking of quality as a one-time event is unsustainable.

Quality is important to deliver services that meet (or exceed) the expectations of service consumers - both functionally and operationally - but also to ensure that the service complies with the policies set out by organization.  The Mindreef products have primarily focused on this for the pre-production phases of the service lifecycle - build , test, and change - and all the awards show that Mindreef is clearly a leader there. The Actional products have also focused on the exact same goal: delivering services that meet (or exceed) the expectations of service consumers while complying with all the necessary policies.  What makes Actional complementary, though, is that we focused on this for the deployment and production phases of the service lifecycle.  From an Actional perspective we might not call it "quality" - we use terms like transaction management, service level agreements, exception management, policy enforcement, etc. - but  the end goal is the same.

With SOA, the historical clarity between production and pre-production has disappeared. If my service is in production, but you're building a consumer that's not, is this production or pre-production?  Unfortunately, the correct answer is yes! Bringing together Mindreef and Actional lets us address this problem holistically, with best-in-class capabilities across the lifecycle.  So, you'll see a lot of interesting things coming from our combined team in the near future as we deliver on this value proposition.

With that, let me say thank you for supporting Mindreef!  The Actional and Mindreef teams look forward to working with you to further your SOA success!

Dan