The Test team are pleased to announce the general availability of Test Workbench 9.5.
 
There are core objectives we in the Test team work to advance with every release - technology coverage, simplicity and building an open ecosystem.Test Workbench 9.5 delivers on these objectives across the board and brings with it something entirely new for the team - the technical preview of the first major release of our new platform; but more on that later.​

For users of Rational Integration Tester and Rational Test Virtualisation Server, version 9.5 brings significant core technology enhancements:

• AMQP (Rabbit MQ) support, enables customers with applications underpinned with the AMQP protocol to integrate those applications with their API scenarios.
• OpenAPI 3 is the progression of the swagger specification for RESTful services. With version 3 of the specification there are significant changes such that we now offer a dedicated synchronisation path for OpenAPI 3 documents.
• Updated database support
• Sift and Pass through for traditional relational databases means users can now build self learning virtual database models; unlocking a new class of intelligent virtual service for users.
• MongoDB support provides initial support for NoSQL databases in a test context. Users can query and update documents in MongoDB. As more customers adopt NoSQL databases as part of their application modernisation plans we expect to expand this support beyond MongoDB; we’re keen to hear your NoSQL deployment stories, use the email at the bottom of this document to get in touch.
• Integrated Git version control. Rational Integration Tester has previously offered 3rd party solutions for version control of test cases. In conversation with our users we determined that the majority had or were planning on adopting Git and as such you will now find native Git integration built in. 

For more details on what’s new with integration testing and service virtualization, see the release notes here:

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSBLQQ_9.5.0/com.ibm.rational.rit.reldoc.doc/topics/rit_readme.html

For our Rational Functional Tester users, 9.5 refreshes and enhances key capabilities:

• A new dedicated asset type for Accelerated Functional Testing makes it simple to group and run tests on multiple browsers and configurations. Combined with Jenkins integration this powers up the testing experience for UI automation users.
• Dynamic enablement of Java applications simplifies the most common getting started task for a new Rational Functional Tester user tasked with testing a Java application. Where previously instrumentation was an error prone and manual task, our new dynamic enablement technology speeds up, simplifies and removes the errors for users.

• Visual Studio support has been updated to integrate with Visual Studio 2017. Users of Microsoft’s development platform can author their UI automation scripts within Visual Studio using VB.Net.
• New test dataset technology. See Rational Performance Tester, below, for details.
• Integrated Git version control. Rational Test Workbench UI now comes with the Eclipse Git team provider enabled by default.

 
For more details on what’s new with functional test automation, see the release notes here: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSBLQQ_9.5.0/com.ibm.rational.test.ft.readme.doc/topics/readme.html
 
In the performance testing space Rational Performance Tester has embraced a key open source tool and vastly improved the way users define and work with test data.

• Jmeter integration. While talking to users we heard from a lot of teams that had invested time in building performance scenarios with Jmeter but who then struggled to both scale those tests and understand the output.
• By enabling a user to include a Jmeter script in a performance schedule we both simplify the scaling using Rational Performance Testers intelligent agent technology
• We have also simplified the analysis of Jmeter output by integrating the report metrics with our own Web Analytics toolkit.
• Jmeter users also get access to Rational Performance Testers wide array of resource monitoring sources and intelligent playback control with SLA targeting.
• New test dataset technology. One of the largest changes to the desktop products is the replacement of the old test ‘datapool’ way of managing data for driving tests. The new ‘dataset’ capability maintains key requirements such as encryption of data columns, but also provides the flexibility of editing that modern users expect. This key change affects both Rational Performance Tester and Rational Functional Testers Web capability - with Rational Functional Testers traditional view to follow shortly.
• Integrated Git version control. Rational Performance Tester now comes with the Eclipse Git team provider enabled by default.

 
For more details on what’s new with performance testing, see the release notes here: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSBLQQ_9.5.0/com.ibm.rational.test.lt.reldoc.doc/topics/readme.html
 
These enhancements are significant in their own right, however many of these changes are also laying the ground work for our next major release. Alongside Rational Test Workbench 9.5 desktop release we are also including our first look at the next chapter in our own app modernisation story.
 
Rational Test Control Panel Server is a Docker-native platform for testers. Offering much requested features such as role based access control, this new platform continues our integration story by enabling users to combine tests from across the Rational Test Workbench in a single project on the platform.
 
With a focus on test execution at first, the new Rational Test Control Panel Server platform gives users at a glance information about test progress and provides tools to schedule and analyse test results.
 
With Rational Test Workbench 9.5 the new Rational Test Control Panel Server is available as a technical preview; this means users are able to download and try the new capabilities out - and send us feedback - however it is not a supported GA release, between now and the official launch we expect changes at both the UI and API layers so we are not publicising any of the API documentation for the technical preview.
 
For more details on the Rational Test Control Panel Server, see the release notes here:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSBLQQ_server10.0.0/com.hcl.test.server.overview.doc/topics/r_server_readme.html
 
With Rational Test Workbench 9.5 the team have worked hard to both address key enhancement requests and add entirely new forward thinking capability. As we advance the new Rational Test Control Panel Server platform this focus on enterprise needs, community needs and technology drivers will shape the product and with your continued feedback and support we’re looking forward to the next big milestone!
 
Please let us know if you have any questions. 
Thank you,