Service virtualization is a technology that enables you to record and emulate the behavior of components that the application under test depends on. In this section:

What is Service Virtualization? 

You can use CTP to add, review, extend, and reorganize virtual assets. This service virtualization functionality requires that you have a Virtualize server (such as a traditional Virtualize server or Continuous Testing Service / Service Virtualization Engine) running and connected to CTP.

From CTP's Virtual Asset management page, you can add, configure, and manage virtual assets for REST and SOAP APIs.  This interface is designed to enable rapid definition and updating of virtual assets. In addition, you can review, modify, and extend your team's existing library of virtual assets created in Virtualize desktop.

Responders and Responder Suites

You should become familiar with the following terms that describe components associated with Parasoft service virtualization. 

• Responders are tools that specify which response should be sent for a given incoming request. Each responder responds to incoming request messages that match its correlation criteria.
• Responder suites are used to group and organize responders, data sources, and other assets within a .pva file.
• A .pva file can contain one or more nested responder suites. A .pva that is deployed on a Virtualize server is considered a virtual asset deployment.

Navigation Tab

The Navigation tab includes the following screens.

Virtualize Servers

The Virtualize Servers screen shows which servers are connected to CTP.

Click on a link to view additional information about the assets hosted on the server. See Monitoring Virtualize Server Usage Statistics for details.

Virtual Assets

The Virtual Assets screen provides access to virtual assets hosted on the connected Virtualize and SOAtest servers.

Details about using this functionality are described in the following section:

• Creating Virtual Assets
• Creating Virtual Assets from Traffic
• Accessing Virtual Assets
• Managing Virtual Assets

Provisioning Actions

A provisioning action (PVA) configures a set of environment component instances. Executing a provisioning action enables a specific environment so that testers can run their scenarios. The Provisioning Actions screen shows the PVAs that have been configured and can be executed on the Virtualize and SOAtest server.

You can create and configure PVAs in from the Environment Manager module. Refer to Provisioning Test Environments for details.

Click on a PVA in the Name column to view additional information about the action. 

Message Proxies

The Message Proxies tab lists the message proxies that have been deployed to the Virtualize and SOAtest server. The Folder column will be empty if a proxy is stored in the Message Proxies root folder on the server. If a proxy has been placed in a subfolder, the name of the subfolder will appear. 

Click on a proxy to view additional information, including number of hits and connections.

You can create proxies from the Environment Manager module in CTP when setting up an environment. See Configuring Message Proxies for details. 

You can also create and configure proxies in the Virtualize desktop and deploy them to the server where they can be leveraged in CTP environments. Refer to the Virtualize documentation for details. 

JDBC Controllers

The JDBC Controllers screen lists the JDBC controllers that have been deployed to the Parasoft infrastructure. A JDBC controller is a mechanism that enables you to switch modes (e.g., passthrough, record, virtualize) from the UI without having to restart the application server.

You can click the name of a controller to access its details screen. You can lock the JDBC controller from the detail screen.

Deployments

The Deployments screen shows the status of all service virtualization deployments for a specific server.

For each server connected to CTP, you can drill down into usage details at virtual asset or message responder activity level. The table only lists responders and listeners in the Responder Activity and Listener Activity sections if the message responders and proxies have been hit by traffic. If a known responder or listener is not listed under a virtual asset when you expand the table, this indicates that the component has not yet been hit by traffic. If a server or its assets are offline or disabled, the number of hits last recorded will appear in the table.

Click Refresh to load any changes into the table. 

You can also select or more assets or proxies and perform the following actions:

• Click Reset Hits to rest the number of hits logged to 0. After resetting, the asset or proxy will be removed from the table until a new hit is logged.
• Click Disable to make the deployment inaccessible. You will not be able to change the state of the asset or proxy if it has been locked by the owner. 
• Click Enable to enable a deployment that has been disabled. You will not be able to change the state of the asset or proxy if it has been locked by the owner.
• Click Start Monitoring or Stop Monitoring to start or stop logging traffic. You can also enable/disable monitoring by clicking the button for the asset or proxy in the name column:
  
  You an also enable/disable monitoring in the Events tab (see Monitoring).

Disabling Event Monitoring

Users with administrator permissions can click the gear icon to disable/enable the ability to monitor all services on the server.

When the Event monitoring service option is disabled, the Start Monitoring button is disabled for all virtual assets and message proxies on the server, as well as in the desktop UI. Disabling monitoring functionality enables you to reduce performance overhead for instances when a server's proxies and assets do not require monitoring.   

Events Tab

The Events tab includes all event messages sent through the virtual environment.

Filtering Messages by Infrastructure

The Events tab provides several mechanisms for filtering message. Choose Servers or Systems from the drop-down menu to view messages according by type of environment infrastructure.

You can display messages by a specific server/system or all servers/systems.  

You can choose to display message by environment when filtering by system. When filtering by server, you can display message by deployments (Virtual Asset or Message Proxy).

Monitoring 

You can enable/disable event monitoring from the filter sidebar.

Filtering Messages in the Results Table

Click in the Time range fields to specify which messages to include based on the date and time they were sent/recieved.

You can click on a column header to sort messages. You can click the table menu to add or remove columns from the table.

Reports Tab

The Reports tab includes the following screens.

Hit Statistics

The Hit Statistics report shows the number of hits to the server, virtual assets, and message proxies for the current day based on your system’s time zone.

See Monitoring Virtualize Server Usage Statistics for details about using the Hit Statistics report.

Out-of-Sync Virtual Assets

The Out-of-sync Virtual Assets report shows virtual assets that may not accurately represent the real component it represents. Assets by become out of sync with their components if, for example, the service changes and the asset has not been updated to reflect the changes. 

• You can click on the CIR (change impact report) link to view the Change Impact report (see Assessing Change Impacts).
• You can also click on the link in the Name column to view details about the asset.

See Reviewing Out of Sync Virtual Assets for additional information.

Recent Changes

The Recent Changes report shows assets that have been modified in Virtualize or SOAtest. 

• You can click on the CIR (change impact report) link to view the Change Impact report (see Assessing Change Impacts).
• You can also click on the link in the Name column to view details about the asset.

See Reviewing Modifications Made from Virtualize and SOAtest for details.