Focusing on software delivery processes, Hewlett-Packard will formally launch today its HP ALM 11 Platform, which the company says automates application modernization from requirements management to quality and performance.
Featuring base technologies acquired when HP bought Mercury Interactive, HP ALM (application life cycle management) 11 offers a unified system for delivering software in enterprises and works with whatever development tools customers want to use, said Mark Sarbiewski, vice president of product marketing for HP software application solutions. The platform spans from requirements management to functional quality, performance, and security of software, he said.
HP ALM 11 gives quality assurance managers a look at their entire testing world, said Todd Eaton, director of ALM tools and services at HP ALM 11 user McKesson, which provides health care services. “They see all that in one place,” he said.
Software teams can better accommodate workflow, such as when requirements need to be executed against building and testing, Sarbiewski said. Work can be traced through a single system, using one back-end database. Users benefit from accelerated delivery of software, he added. With the platform, HP is particularly focused on rich Internet and composite application development and the complexities they bring.
The platform features capabilities for requirements, test, and defect management as well as manual testing, automated functional testing, and performance testing; a plug-in is offered for dynamic security testing. Developers can integrate with developer tools and code management tools so that all work is connected into software being built. HP released the platform at the beginning of October but has waited until this week’s HP Software Universe 2010 event in Barcelona for the formal launch.
HP ALM 11 leverages HP Quality Center, for software quality assurance, and HP Performance Center, for application testing. “We took the superset of those two systems and merged them into this single platform,” said Sarbiewski. Quality Center and Performance Center are former Mercury Interactive products.
The platform also includes an ALM 11 Project Planning and Tracking module, for establishing release criteria and managing milestones. To boost collaboration between developers, quality assurance persons, and others, HP ALM 11 offers pre-built integrations with IDEs. The platform offers rapid application delivery via HP Agile Accelerator 4.0, for managing agile development projects.
Automated manual testing is provided via HP Sprinter. Improved test creation is enabled via HP TruClient, which is part of the HP LoadRunner 11.0 application performance testing product and tests rich Internet applications. HP Unified Functional Testing 11.0 addresses application functional defects in the platform and features a combination of HP Functional Testing and HP Service Test.
HP said HP ALM 11 is part of HP Application Transformation Solutions, for transforming applications and processes to help enterprises gain control over aging applications and inflexible processes. HP ALM 11 can integrate with the CollabNet TeamForge ALM platform, which can provide software build capabilities.
