Forum Discussion

cshukusky's avatar
cshukusky
Contributor
11 years ago

Replacement option for Network Suite and Automated Build Studio

A few years ago I had tried distributing my automated tests across multiple PCs using the Network Suite in TestComplete, but I was unable to do everything I had hoped would with the network suite.



After much hassle trying to get the network suite to do what I wanted, I got the suggestion from the smartbear support team to try using the smartbear product called Automated Build Studio.  As it turns out, ABS did everything I needed, so I have been using that since.



However, I have learned that ABS has been discontinued so I want to find a new solution where I could get support if need be.



Here is what I want to be able to do:



1. Schedule the tests on 1 master PC to start at a particular time each day.

2. On all PCs which will be running tests, including the master PC, update to the latest version of the tests from subversion.

3. On all PCs, including the master PC, install the latest build of the software to test.

4. Distribute a test to each PC, including the master PC, with any additional tests getting queued up and immediately distributed to a PC as soon as that PC finishes its  previous test.

5. Once the final test has been performed, on the master PC, email a summary of the results of all the tests (not the full logs from testcomplete) to the necessary parties.





So my question is: has SmartBear created a new tool to replace Automated Build Studio's functionality, or has the TestComplete network suite been updated with new features to be able to do all that I mentioned? In particular I need to be able to efficiently distribute tests as PCs become available as I have limited resources (both in terms of PCs and time).



If smartbear doesn't have a viable replacement, does anyone know of any good tools to use instead?



Thanks.



- Chris

7 Replies

  • chrisb's avatar
    chrisb
    Regular Contributor
    11 years ago
    Hi Chris,



    I'd strongly recommend taking a look at using Jenkins. I am using it for a similar workflow and it works great. It was pretty straightforward to setup. I have a build step to pull the latest version of the project from source control, followed by a step that launches test execute from the command line. Jenkins distributes the test runs around available nodes and scheduling is straightforward. I especially like how easy it is to manage our Jenkins instance with regards to doing upgrades, backups, and managing nodes. Tip: Use the Java (JNLP) web start Jenkins slave agent for launching GUI tests on your nodes.
  • cshukusky's avatar
    cshukusky
    Contributor
    11 years ago
    Chris,



    Thanks for the suggestion.



    I gave it a shot, but couldn't get my test to run correctly.



    I have a batch file that I know works when I run it manually, but when I run it through jenkins, the testcomplete process starts and the the tested app process starts but I don't see the GUIs for either process, and the test ends up failing due to that fact.



    Anybody have any other suggestions?



    - Chris
  • AlexKaras's avatar
    AlexKaras
    Community Hero
    11 years ago
    Hi Chris,



    >  testcomplete process starts and the the tested app process starts but I don't see the GUIs for either process



    This is how OS behaves when some process (in your case this is TestComplete and/or your tested application) is started from another process that is not running in the current user's session.

    The generic solution is to either start the starting process (Jenkins agent) as a regular application from the user session or make it possible for the agent process to communicate with this user's session.

    Sorry, I don't have links ready at the hand as we speak, but if you search TestComplete forum you should find a lot of relevant threads.



    P.S. I was also extremely unpleasantly surprised when I saw a notification on the site about ABS been discontinued. According to my experience, I did not see anything as convenient as it is... But on the other hand, any reason to move to some other tool while ABS works for you? I know that ABS still works for all guys that I know of without any problem.
  • cshukusky's avatar
    cshukusky
    Contributor
    11 years ago


    Alex,



    That is what I figured.  The problem is I cannot figure out how to get jenkins to automatically communicate with my user session.  It appeared to require me to setup my PCs to automatically log in, but for security reasons, I cannot do that.  But this isn't a jenkins forum, so I won't delve any deeper into that here.



    As for why I am looking for an ABS replacement.  Yes, ABS is still working for my original setup for one of the applications I test, but I was looking to expand to 2 more setups for testing another application in windows 7 and windows 8. I ran into problems and upon looking for solutions I found the discontinued notice, so I figured my best bet would be to start looking for a replacement now.



    - Chris


  • AlexKaras's avatar
    AlexKaras
    Community Hero
    11 years ago
    Chris,



    I am not using Jenkins, so I cannot help you here, sorry...



    Out of curiosity - what were the problems with ABS on Win7/Win8 ? Had you tried to start ABS 'As Administrator' ? (Right click on ABS shortcut and select 'Run as administrator' command.) Didn't it help?
  • cshukusky's avatar
    cshukusky
    Contributor
    11 years ago
    For windows 7, the issue was actually only with 1 PC.  The step in the macro that was first sent to the PC ran sucessfully, the second step sent to the PC , however, failed to make it to the PC, as if ABS lost connection to it. Then the remote execution stack I setup to issue all the tests would attempt to send tests to the offending PC, they would fail immediately, and so it would issue the next test, fail immediately, and so on and so forth. So I would end up with all the other remote PCs getting one test each and running through them successfully, but all the other tests would fail on this one offending PC.  I don't have the error the PC was giving readily available unfortunately. In this case I did not try to run as administrator because I didn't need to do that for any of the other windows 7 PCs I am using in my setups.



    The windows 8 setup on the other hand, had every PC return it was unable to launch test execute.  In this case I did set ABS to run as administrator, but it did not help.



    - Chris
  • AlexKaras's avatar
    AlexKaras
    Community Hero
    11 years ago
    Chris,



    Thank you for the details.

    I did not work much with the Remote Execution Stack operations, so again, cannot help here, but I implemented several macros that worked with remote boxes via psexec utility by SysInternals and RDP+ utility and those macros worked fine.



    BTW, RDP+ utility makes it possible to automate the logon into remote box via RDP, so maybe you'll find it useful for your Jenkins setup.