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- HyperTest TBA – Test bed adapter for test beds
Integrate your test beds efficiently and cost-effectively into your test process
The HyperTest® Test Bed Adapter (TBA) closes the digitalization gap in your test field. It connects your test management system with test bed automation and data management. This enables you to have consistent, undisrupted and process-reliable test management. You can reduce the risk of errors in your test process significantly, save resources and meet all your quality standards even more efficiently.
Are your test beds optimally integrated into your test procedures?
As a company that puts emphasis on efficient and reliable test processes for all their test departments, you most probably digitalized your business processes years ago. Hence, you presumably employ solutions for your test management and test bed automation. Still you may see room for improvement in your test process: Your test beds, which have many different automation systems, have not yet been optimally integrated into your workflow. The individual connection of your various test benches to the test and data management is technically very complex and maintenance is hardly possible. The consequences probably are:
- Data is incorrectly assigned or lost in the transfer, and thus tests are no longer traceable and reproducible
- Manual transfers of information and files take an unnecessary amount of time, so that your test processes cause more effort
- You have to integrate many different software solutions, which leads to high costs.
This is exactly where Werum's HyperTest TBA comes in. It integrates your test beds efficiently and cost-effectively into your test process.
How the HyperTest TBA looks after consistent, undisrupted and reliable test process so you can meet all your quality requirements
The HyperTest TBA acts as mediator between all systems involved – from the test management system and the test bed automation all the way to the data management.
Being an interface application, it collects the data from your test management system and places them available to the test bed automation. In the same fashion, it fetches the result data from your test bed and transfers them to your central data management or archiving system. The HyperTest TBA integrates your test bed from beginning to end into the overall workflow of your test process and provides important test management functions locally at the test bed.
In addition to order retrieval and result data transmission, the functions also include the local editing and managing of orders, execution monitoring and the compilation of the result data. With that, you can rely on the working in your test field to be efficient and process-reliable.
That is why the HyperTest TBA works for you – irrespective of your test beds' equipment or the test data management system you are using
The HyperTest TBA is a universal, high-performance software solution for an efficient and cost-effective integration of test beds into the IT landscape of your test field. It enables a consistent and process-reliable test process without media breaks. It also helps you fulfil quality requirements like traceability or reproducibility.
Because of the HyperTest TBA's modular architecture, you can use plug-in modules to connect your test management, data management and test bed automation systems. As it supports various communication procedures and data formats, you can profit from a high degree of flexibility.
You already use Werum's test bed automation system WTCS and would like to smoothly integrate it into Werum's test process management system HyperTest Boost?
For that, too, the HyperTest TBA is the perfect tool. Even if you are using an external system, it will integrate it without any trouble because you can flexibly configure HyperTest TBA with its plug-in modules and extend them if required for a specific application.
As you know now, the HyperTest TBA takes charge of transferring and converting data between your test management, test bed and data management when in automated operation mode.
In interactive operation, it is a very elegant solution if your test beds fail to have their own test order management. Operation of the HyperTest TBA is easy and efficient, which makes your processes run cost-effectively and at the highest quality level.
These are the benefits of the HyperTest TBA our customers appreciate as particularly valuable:
Reliable quality assurance due to uninterrupted process automation
With the HyperTest TBA you can transfer orders from the test management to your test bed without facing media breaks and you can transmit the result data back into your data management. It helps you avoid manual transfer errors and increase your process reliability.
An interactive user interface is available for you to adjust the test order and add free comments to properly document its execution. For quality assurance purposes, all the modifications you make are consistently logged. Moreover, your result data are automatically checked for completeness in order to ensure significantly improved data quality.
High level of efficiency due to automation of manual tasks
As many of the manual tasks involved in the transfer of orders and results are automated, you employees save valuable time at the test bed. Strikingly simplified workflows allow them to focus on their principal tasks, instead. The minimized error proneness helps you to avoid test repetitions, which cost a lot of time and money.
Owing to its easy installation, you can integrate the application across your entire test field in next to no time. What's more, your employees will have a decreasing need for training as the application you employ for test process integration will be the same at all your locations. And with the operating principles being the same across all your test beds, your employees can improve their efficiency considerably and can flexibly operate different test beds.
Clear reduction of costs by employing a proven platform solution
Employing the HyperTest TBA as a tried and tested, standardized modular platform solution and acquiring licenses will certainly give you a clear cost advantage over individual implementations. The re-use of interfaces to the central test management, data management and authentication systems will cut your adjustment efforts enormously.
In the same fashion, the local interfaces between the HyperTest TBA and test bed automation systems can be reused for all systems that use a common data exchange format. It is also possible to standardize parts of the interfaces across the board, which unlocks further costs reduction potential.
Constant stability through uniform integration platform
The high degree of maturity of a uniform integration platform like the HyperTest TBA enables a high level of operating stability and efficient utilization of your test beds. As you need to have the interface plug-ins implemented only once at a central point, you profit from a higher degree of maturity than many individual adjustments at the different test beds can achieve.
The fact that Werum – your competent and trusted partner – continually advances and maintains your platform ensures investment security and smooth operation of your test field.
All HyperTest TBA functions at a glance:
With the HyperTest TBA you can accept orders from your test management system and manage them internally. It supports the transfer of new orders as well as the modification of existing ones. You can postpone or cancel orders you have received but not yet executed in order to change the test beds' allocation planning.
The user interface of the HyperTest TBA provides the test bed operator with a display of imported orders sorted by processing status. For every order, you can show the attributes transferred from the test management system and edit them.
Modifications are automatically documented to facilitate gapless traceability of the actual test execution and to document deviations from the original order.
Your employees start and finish test execution in the user interface. Owing to the HyperTest TBA's modular concept, they can shape the procedures very flexibly: the HyperTest TBA can transfer suitable order files to the test bed automation for the system to process them. But you can also implement rather complex procedures like starting the actual automation application, for example.
If you have test beds that have a suitable test order management but no proper interface to the test field's global test and data management system, you have the option to operate the HyperTest TBA in automatic mode.
In this case, the application runs in the background without interacting with the user. It automatically collects orders from the test management and supplies them to the test bed automation in adapted form. In the opposite direction, the HyperTest TBA uses adequate methods to recognize the end of a test and transfers the result data provided by the test bed to the data management system. In this mode, the HyperTest TBA acts as mediator between the systems and adapts their interfaces while your employees can keep working with their familiar automation system.
In the placement of orders as well as the provision of result data, the HyperTest TBA supports the conversion for data formats to facilitate the data exchange between test management and test bed or between test bed and data management, respectively. Order data collected by a web service in an XML or JSON structure, for example, are provided for test bed instruction in the form of files containing common measurement data formats. Provided you have a suitable data plug-in, you can also have result data converted into a uniform file format as the data management uses it with all the different test beds and have them standardized.
The HyperTest TBA is capable of monitoring the execution status of a test if the test bed automation supports this feature. As a result, the processing status of the orders in the HyperTest TBA is updated automatically. When the automation finishes the test, the status change can be used as trigger to collect and archive the result data.
The HyperTest TBA collects the result data from the test bed, which may also include data from subsystems and log files or data the user has added manually in the HyperTest TBA user interface.
The outcome is a data package that is transferred to a data management or archiving system along with the complete description of the test order. To prevent the loss of data, they are kept locally until the target system has confirmed receipt.
The HyperTest TBA can provide interfaces for test field monitoring systems and use them to give information about what particular test is being executed on a test bed under its management.
It can also indicate the progress of tests that are divided into several measurements. If required, you can enhance the solution to transfer selected online data of the test bed automation to a higher-level test field monitoring system following a standardized procedure.
You can integrate user authentication if you want the use of the HyperTest TBA to be limited to a certain group of users. In this case, users can log in with their Windows account. By appropriate configuration, you can synchronize the user information with a centralized rights system, such as Active Directory. The HyperTest TBA is also able to determine the access data required for test and data management systems based on an adequately designed authentication plug-in.
System administrators can configure all relevant aspects of the HyperTest TBA core process and large parts of the specific plug-ins. This also involves internal storage directory structures and the automated or manual operation mode for order or result data transfer. With its comprehensive adaptation options, the HyperTest TBA platform offers you a broad range of applications where your users have a large degree of flexibility to make the essential adjustments.
Plug-ins that perfectly adapt to your needs and conditions:
The HyperTest TBA provides you with all the essential functions you need to manage test orders and result data at the test bed and to exchange the data they contain with the systems involved.
For these purposes, the HyperTest TBA offers interfaces to the test management, to the data management, to the test bed automation and to authentication services. The interfaces are realized as nine plug-ins, which represent logical function blocks in the test execution workflow.
The Order Loader plug-in is the interface to the test management system to collect or accept new orders. From the HyperTest TBA's perspective, it basically provides a function to query new and modified orders and can supply the HyperTest TBA core process with information when triggered by events. The way the interface to the test management system is implemented in the application-specific plug-ins may differ strongly in order to support various communication methods.
Collecting interfaces can be realized just like receiving ones. File-based transfer directories, web services or database queries can be used as means of communication. Even most diverse data formats can be implemented.
The Order Converter plug-in converts test orders from the format your test management provides them in into the format the test bed automation needs.
The conversion is implemented specifically to deal with the order formats of your test management and test bed automation. Different text-based formats like CSV, XML or JSON are possible as source and target formats, just like test data file formats like TDMS.
With the parameterizable conversion, you can use one plug-in with varying information contents of the test beds. This is because the elements of the input file are mapped to the elements of the output file based on a configuration table that can be adjusted individually for each test bed. This way, you can accomplish efficient solutions even in heterogeneous environments.
The Activator plug-in takes care of the process control in interaction with the test bed automation to start a test. It can perform the steps required to supply test order and directory structures for automation and to actuate test execution in the test bed automation system.
The implementation will be adapted to the specific needs of the existing test bed automation. Identical plug-ins can be used for systems using the same methods. They range from the simple supply of an order in a defined directory that is monitored by the automation through to complex, dialog-guided processes to add and configure necessary accompanying files or to compare floating licenses for automation systems with license servers before the HyperTest TBA actually starts the automation system.
The Status Monitor plug-in monitors the progress of test execution by the test bed automation and internally updates the status of your test in the HyperTest TBA. As soon as the plug-in recognizes the end of a test, it actuates the process chain for data collection and archiving.
The implementation will be adapted to the workflows of the test bed automation system. That means that result directories could wait for trigger files to conclude a test. It is also possible to query values using suitable interfaces like web services or process servers like OPC UA, thereby determining the processing status.
The Result Collector plug-in summarizes the test results for you. Apart from the result files generated by the test bed automation, this also involves logging information, user comments and files that were added manually in the HyperTest TBA.
Functional modules are available for the implementation of this specific plug-in, which wrap up the contents of configured directories in ZIP archives or add files to the archive by means of name patterns or time stamps. Another functionality is the adding of files that were assigned to the test manually in the HyperTest TBA. With these modules, you can efficiently compose a perfectly fitting solution.
The Result Converter plug-in can turn files the Result Collector plug-in has collected into different formats. It can also adjust parameter names, units and enumeration values to achieve homogeneous standardization throughout the entire test field.
The implementations of this plug-in may also establish interfaces to analysis systems like DIAdem or MATLAB, for example, and script languages like Python. That provides you with extensive options for individualization.
The Result Transmitter plug-in is the interface to the data management or archiving system to transfer result data and test orders in their actual state along with locally made modifications, if any, and to make sure the data have safely arrived in the target system.
The implementations of the interface to the archiving system are likely to offer the same range of communication and transmission methods or data formats as does the connection to the test management with the Order Loader plug-in. If you have test and data management combined in one system, like an integrated solution based on Werum's HyperTest platform, for example, you can use parts of the implementation for both plug-ins.
The Remote Access plug-in makes it possible for an external system (e.g. the test management) to query the current state of your test execution from the HyperTest TBA. If the connection between HyperTest TBA and test bed automation permits, you also have the option to pause checks running in the HyperTest TBA from here.
The plug-in will be tailored specifically to the test management system's requesting interface and the scope of functions includes the provision of status information from the HyperTest TBA. We can also extend the plug-in for you by adding a query for status information from the test bed automation. Here again, the plug-in will be specifically adjusted to the automation. Another specific adaptation we can make for you is to add a query of status information from the test bed automation.
The job of the Authenticator plug-in is to authenticate your users when they log in to the HyperTest TBA. This way, technical users can work with the operating system as computer-related accounts and still identify the user operating the HyperTest TBA. The Authenticator plug-in can also obtain access data for partner systems from centralized authentication systems.
Customary implementations use the operating system's system functions to log users in to the HyperTest TBA and to authenticate them. To provide access tokens to partner systems, we can add special functions in the plug-in implementation for you, for example to connect an Active Directory server and to let it generate a current, valid access token for a partner system based on stored user data.
The token can then be supplied to the plug-in that is trying to set up the connection to the partner system. This approach makes it possible for you to integrate the HyperTest TBA into your corporate IT while maintaining process reliability.
You would like to close the gap in the digitalization of your test field by integrating your test bed cost-effectively and efficiently into your test process?
Click here to learn in a free chat how the HyperTest Test Bed Adapter can support your test processes: