Release notes for IBM® Rational® Performance Tester

Rational® Performance Tester is a scripting-free environment for automating load and scalability testing of web, ERP, and server-based software applications. Rational® Performance Tester provides rich and customizable reporting to help you identify the presence and cause of system bottlenecks. It captures the network traffic that is rendered when the application under test interacts with a server. This network traffic is then emulated on multiple virtual users while you play back the test. See Rational Performance Tester overview.

• Support to run tests or resources as a GitHub Action

  You can now run tests or resources that are contained in your project in Rational® Performance Tester as a GitHub Action from a Git repository. See Configuration of test runs as a GitHub Actions Workflow.

• Error reports for dropped connections

  Previously, during test runs or schedules, the system under test occasionally dropped the connection, however, the error was reported as a server timeout. Rational® Performance Tester now reports the error condition for a dropped connection separately. See Error conditions.

• Support to view the type of correlation for Test References

  You can now view the type of correlation that is configured for Test References from the Type column on the Test Editor -Test References page for HTTP tests. You can also view the reference type in the Details tab on the Test Element properties page. (Data Correlation > Show References > Test Editor- Test References > Properties > Test Element Properties > Details).

  The types of correlation are Auto, User, or Rule.

  See Viewing references.
• Changed the assets.xml to assets.yaml

  Rational® Performance Tester now writes details of the assets to the assets.yaml file, which was previously written to the assets.xml file. You can view the assets.xml file is deleted and new assets.yaml file is added. You can now easily check in and merge the assets.yaml file when there is a conflict.

• Support for Instana integration

  You can now integrate Instana with Rational® Performance Tester to enhance data collection in performance tests. When you select the Enable Instana option, Rational® Performance Tester filters the HTTP headers and adds them to the request in tests to collate data about the pages and transactions.

  See Using Application Performance Management in a schedule.
• Enhancement to an IF condition comparison

  Rational® Performance Tester is now enhanced to perform a digit comparison when you apply an IF condition to a test or a schedule. If the digit comparison in the IF condition is successful, the result is displayed as true. Otherwise, it is displayed as false. See Adding conditional logic.

• Enhancement to the command line option

  Previously, to run all the test assets from the specified folder path, you created a batch file and ran the test from the command line. The command line option is now enhanced so that you can run multiple test assets at a time by using the wildcard character * enclosed in quotes. You can use * in different combinations to specify any or all test assets that are in a folder. See Running multiple tests from the command line.

• Support for TLS 1.3

  Rational® Performance Tester now supports TLS 1.3. You can record websites that support TLS 1.3 and play back the recorded test.

Deprecated capabilities

You can find information about the capabilities that are deprecated in this release and are planned for a removal in a future release.

Removed capabilities

No capabilities were removed in this release.

Installing Rational® Performance Tester

For installation instructions, see Installation of the product by using IBM Installation Manager.

Upgrading

For installation instructions, see Installation of the product by using IBM Installation Manager.

You can find information about the known issues identified in this release of Rational® Performance Tester.

Known problems are documented in the download document for each product and in the form of individual technotes in the Support Knowledge Base:

The knowledge base is continually updated as problems are discovered and resolved. By searching the knowledge base, you can quickly find workarounds or solutions to problems.

• For contact information and guidelines or reference materials that you might need when you require support, read the IBM Support Guide.

• For personalized support that includes notifications of significant upgrades, subscribe to Product notification.

• Before you contact IBM Rational Software Support, you must gather the background information that you might need to describe your problem. When you describe a problem to an IBM software support specialist, be as specific as possible and include all relevant background information so that the specialist can help you solve the problem efficiently. To save time, know the answers to these questions:

  • What software versions were you running when the problem occurred?
  • Do you have logs, traces, or messages that are related to the problem?
  • Can you reproduce the problem? If so, what steps do you take to reproduce it?
  • Is there a workaround for the problem? If so, be prepared to describe the workaround.