By default, the tool will test performance across common applications (more to be added soon) and it requires minimal setup – allowing you to benchmark various VDI configurations quickly and easily. Test runs can be compared quickly – allowing you to determine the best environment for your applications.

This tool takes the years of experience that Scapa Technologies have in performance and load testing thin client environments and distills the usual complexity of setting up these test scenarios into an easy to use web interface – screen shots below.

We hope to have this application available for download, along with a free licenses (for 5 users and 2 application scripts) very soon from www.scapatech.com – please join our mailing list to ensure you’re amongst the first to know when it’s out!

Test configuration screen

Comparison of two test runs

Software Updates

Firstly, for our Remedy testing customers, we have added the often requested, and long awaited, support for testing Remedy 7.5 APIs. This allows you to use Scapa to test and migrate to the latest version of ITSM. As ever, Scapa offers a unique integration to BMC’s Remedy and ITSM suites at the C and Java APIs, as well as offering testing alternatives via HTTP and the GUI layers. We encourage all of our Remedy based customers to upgrade – please get in touch with your account manager, via our contact page, or by emailing upgrades@scapatech.com

We haven’t been standing still on our Thin Client, Citrix/Xen/RDP, and HTTP product though. Our latest release offers a number of performance and stability improvements, including,

• adding enhanced support for the updated RDP Client present in newer versions of Windows (and Service Packs)
• updates to the Perfmon, Linux and ESX agents
• a new version of Wintask (3.6)

Again, the updated version of the software can be had by contacting your account manager, or though our contact page. As ever, if you’d like any help on using the new features, or even if you are just wondering how to use Scapa for a particular task or architecture, please get in touch with us.

New Developments

We continue to strive to improve our Test and Performance Platform, and expect a forthcoming release to boast significant changes to the interface – we’ve had a number of requests to remove the onscreen “clutter” and are working at doing so. We hope that the improvements will make the testing process even more seamless and intuitive. We’ll have more news in our next update.

We are also continuing to work on a brand new product to test Virtual Desktop Infrastructure deployments. Unlike Scapa TPP, this will be a zero configuration “out of the box” tool that will allow users to set up and run Benchmark tests very quickly. This tool also represents a move to a web based interface, which TPP may well follow, if the reaction is favourable. We’re very close to releasing it, so please get in touch if you’d like to hear more.

Partner Focus

For helping with the testing of our Remedy 7.5 release, we are indebted to Technosys – our preferred BMC Remedy partner in the UK.

Technosys offer a free Remedy Upgrade Consultation. Technosys’s Scapa certified consultants combine their wealth of BMC Remedy and Scapa knowledge to deliver a truly first class service to any sized BMC Remedy implementation.

Take advantage by visiting http://www.technosysuk.com/services/remedy_upgrade_service.htm to book your free consultation.

Using Scapa will allow you to benchmark the performance of an ITSM deployment – whether a new one, or a migration from a previous version, or on updated hardware.

With the help of our services partner Technosys, we can now offer this latest release to new and existing customers – existing customers should contact their account manager. If you are not a customer and would like to try this exciting new development, please get in touch via the contact form

Use Scapa TPP to test the performance and scalability of any VDI solution, whatever the server, the desktop, or secure desktop broker.

The universal, proven solution for VDI Performance Testing

Scapa TPP works the same in all environments: traditional desktop, remote desktop, streamed applications and O/S, virtual desktop.  Full object access, no OCR.  It just works.

We are already working to ensure that we can provide stress, performance and scalability testing for these new platforms – the VDI capabilities of Windows 7 running on Server 2008 R2 look particularly interesting.

Our tool already works with the latest version of the Remote Desktop Client, and with Windows 2008, so we should be able to complete verification of the testing pretty soon.

There have been a number of recent improvements to our Test and Performance Platform that we’d like to tell you about, as well as giving you a sneak preview of a new release that we have planned for later on in the year.

As ever, if you’d like any help on using the new features, or even if you are just wondering how to use Scapa for a particular task or architecture, please get in touch with us.

We’re very excited about our capability to test the latest and greatest innovations in application delivery. As well as our track record in testing thin client platforms such as Citrix Presentation Server/XenApp and Microsoft Terminal Services, we have also adapted Scapa TPP to test Virtual Desktop Infrastructure solutions, such as VMWare View, Citrix XenDesktop, Quest vWorkspace and Microsoft RemoteApp.

Unlike other testing tools, we are completely agnostic as to how you have built your environment, and have the ability to test the platform, no matter what the end user applications are, or how they are accessed, whether streamed or through a custom client. Please get in touch if you have deployed, or are considering any of these new technologies, and we’ll show you how we can help.

Also, we remain the only testing tool that can performance test BMC Remedy Service Desk and ITSM at the client and mid tier layers.

So, without further ado, here are some key updates to the current product:

• We now fully support testing Windows 2008 as well as the latest clients and brokers
• We now support testing VDI deployments from all vendors
• We’ve added an agent to pull performance stats from VMWare ESX and ESXi
• Updated version of Wintask (3.5a)

To upgrade please get in touch by emailing upgrades@scapatech.com or contact your account manager who will be more than happy to assist.

We have also been working hard on a brand new version of the Scapa Test and Performance Platform, which will launch later this year. To be one of the first to see this innovative and exciting new upgrade  then please come and see us when we launch it at:

vmworld 31 Aug - Sep 3, Moscone Center, San Francisco

We will be at vmworld 2009, from 31st August until the 3rd September in The Moscone Centre, San Francisco. If you are attending, please stop by and say hello.

So what’s new in this major release?

As well as addressing new technologies in the marketplace, we have listened to all your valuable feedback and are incorporating as many of your suggestions as possible. Three key changes to our architecture are:

• The tool will support out of the box testing – packaged with scripts for common applications.
• A greatly simplified interface, but with the ability to drill into all of the features that you know and love
• Migrating to a web based interface

As you can imagine we are very excited about this new development. This release will strengthen our position in the Remedy, Thin Client and Virtual Desktop testing areas – competing tools cannot test the breadth of platforms that we can, and our client side measurement still delivers the most accurate results of any testing methodology.

We have plenty more planned for this release and we will be able to share more about this with you over the next few months.

We are also looking at running a series of training workshops and we would like to get an idea of numbers and areas before we set something up. If this is of interest then please get in touch and give an idea of how many attendees and what areas of interest, i.e. VDI, scripting etc.

We are also offering fixed priced engagements where we can deliver services in pre-defined manner ensuring your testing budget does not run away. We would simply agree what is required and do the rest.

Please note that we have moved offices and our new contact information is below. If you would like further information on any of the above, or would like to discuss some testing projects then please get in touch.

Many thanks
Iain McLeod, Sales Director

Scapa Technologies Ltd.  Tel. 0800 242 5864      Fax. 0800 242 5864
Stuart House, Eskmills, Station Road, Musselburgh, EH21 7PB, Scotland

1. You get results faster – fewer test consulting hours
2. You pay less per virtual user
3. You only have to buy one product, not lots of different connectors for all the protocols you want to use.

Of course if you don’t care about the budget, then you should probably go to the competition.

One opportunity is consolidation of IT systems. After mergers there are clearly benefits in consolidating business processes and the IT systems that support those processes, and given the opportunities to reduce costs there is an investment case for doing so, even in this climate.

It is this, we believe, that may be the trigger for widespread adoption of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. If you are changing systems anyway, why not move to a virtual solution. Then since (in a merger) you will likely be expanding one system at the expense of another, you will doubtless need a stress test. That’s where we come in.

Scapa Technologies have recently partnered with Platform Lab, an IT test facility that offers short term physical or remote access to IT hardware and massive bandwidth for all types of companies for the explicit purpose of IT testing and projects.

They partner with a number of testing tool vendors, including Scapa, and offer the opportunity to replicate large production environments without the need to own hardware or bandwidth to do so. They don’t supply the tool, or the testing services, all that is done by us (or you).

Their hardware, and our toolset will allow you to test to a far greater degree of accuracy than would be possible were a subset of hardware to be used.

If hardware capacity is an issue for you, please give them (or us) a call.