Test and Measurement: App testing support expands

A number of companies are expanding their application-related testing and development support, seeking to better support enterprises who are increasingly leveraging cloud and mobile in their businesses.
Ixia is using its background in traffic generation and security to support a new offering for application development. The company launched Ixia Developer this week, an app performance and security tool aimed at reducing the amount of time it takes developers to identify bugs and vulnerabilities; it can generate realistic application traffic as well as automated threats and attacks. Meanwhile, Accenture has opened a new digital innovation center in Paris that leverages its analytics offerings and focus on digital transformation to support enterprises in developing and testing various types of digital business initiatives, including applications and application delivery. Vendors are also increasing automation and integration when it comes to app testing and development: CA Technologies this week launched a new edition of its application release automation and delivery solution that includes integrations across its own portfolio and those of third parties, and claims that this can speed up applications’ progression from development to test to production to deployment by as much as 20 times while improving app test efficiency by up to 25 percent.
Gartner has predicted that by the end of next year, the demand for mobile app development services “will grow at least five times faster than internal IT organizations’ capacity to deliver them,” driven by enterprises’ desire to have apps that are as usable and useful as consumer apps; employees using more mobile devices as part of their work; and the looming impact of the internet of things, which will mean even more enterprise devices, wearables and data from those “things.” This is placing pressure on IT departments to develop more types of mobile apps and develop them faster, providing an opportunity for companies who can support more efficient and effective app development and testing processes.
In other test news:
–Fluke Networks recently expanded its LinkWare Live support from the U.S. to Canada and 32 other countries. The cloud-based data reporting, device configuration and tracking solution for some Fluke instruments means faster reporting from the field and better ability to keep track of testing instruments.
–Keysight Technologies has signed a new memorandum of understanding for a partnership on 5G development with National Applied Research Laboratories of Taiwan. Keysight is working with NAR Labs’ National Chip Implementation Center on millimeter wave front-end circuit design and the collaboration is expected to lead to experimental 5G networks.
The company also announced that electronics certification provider Allion Labs has chosen Keysight’s high-speed digital measurement offerings in order to support certification testing for Thunderbolt 3 hosts — Thunderbolt 3 is new, faster connection technology that builds on USB 3.1 and can achieve connection speeds of up to 40 Gbps. Allion is now an Intel-authorized certification lab for Thunderbolt 3.
–Pasternack has launched a new line of semi-rigid test probes for testing microwave circuits, in three different diameters; they operate at a maximum frequency of 6 GHz.  Steve Ellis, interconnect product manager at Pasternack, said that the new assemblies “are part of a rapidly expanding test and measurement components portfolio designed to meet the urgent requirements of our customers.”
–Syntest is venturing into the automotive integrated circuit arena with new support for testing chipsets in vehicles. The design-for-test tools company announced this week that it already has some tools in use in the automotive IC industry, and that the new support focuses on complying with ISO 26262 standard during manufacturing testing as well as monitoring design failures in real-time, in the field when the design is in standby mode.