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Test Execution Specialist Guide
This guide describes tasks that you can perform on schedules, test execution with custom code, and Extending HCL OneTest™ Performance to support other protocols. This guide is intended for testers or test execution specialists.
Extending HCL OneTest™ Performance to support other protocols
The HCL OneTest™ Performance Extensibility Software Development Kit (SDK) enables you to create extensions to support testing new protocols without modifying the core product code. You can create an extension that provides functionality for testing other protocols in addition to the HTTP protocol support that is standard in HCL OneTest Performance.
Protocol extension structure
Before organizing your extension, note the restrictions and guidelines provided in this topic.

Test Execution Specialist Guide
This guide describes tasks that you can perform on schedules, test execution with custom code, and Extending HCL OneTest™ Performance to support other protocols. This guide is intended for testers or test execution specialists.
- Running schedules with performance testing
  After you have added the user groups, tests, and other items to a schedule, and you are satisfied that it represents a realistic workload, you run the schedule.
- Extending test execution with custom code
  You can extend how you run your tests by writing custom Java™ code and calling the code from the test. You can also specify that results from the tests that are affected by your custom code be included in reports.
- Extending HCL OneTest™ Performance to support other protocols
  The HCL OneTest™ Performance Extensibility Software Development Kit (SDK) enables you to create extensions to support testing new protocols without modifying the core product code. You can create an extension that provides functionality for testing other protocols in addition to the HTTP protocol support that is standard in HCL OneTest Performance.
  - Protocol extension structure
    Before organizing your extension, note the restrictions and guidelines provided in this topic.
  - Extending the test recorder
    To generate a test, the data exchanged by an application and another entity such as a server must be recorded. The recorded data is then processed to generate a test.
  - Extending the test generation framework
    Test generation consists of processing the recorded data and producing a test.
  - Contributing annotations
    An annotation is an action that a user performs during a recording session. Annotations are used to document or structure the test generated from the recording.
  - Extending the load test behavior model
    The load test behavior model (LTBM) is a model of the behavior of a performance test in HCL OneTest™ Performance.
  - Extending data correlation
    Data correlation is the process of extracting data that is returned from a server, and then sending it back to the server in a subsequent request.
  - Extending the test editor
    The performance testing software provides application programming interface (API) classes for extending the test and performance tools platform (TPTP) to write new editors and protocol extensions.
  - Contributing error handlers
    An error handler is associated with an error condition. Error handlers specify the action to take when a specified error condition occurs. Error handlers are provided for conditions such as verification-point failures, connection failures, server timeouts, and data-correlation problems. You can add new types of errors and error handlers.
  - Extending the schedule component
    When you extend the schedule component in performance testing, another plug-in can contribute options to a schedule. Those options can be set up to persist in the schedule model, and a corresponding user interface can be displayed for editing the new options.
  - Extending code generation
    The code generation subsystem maps Load Test Behavior Model (LTBM) elements to objects of the code generation element model (IModelElement), which in turn are mapped to objects of its ILanguageElement class. As a result, a language element tree is created that contains all equivalent elements of the behavior model test element tree and at the same time determines the structure of code to be generated.
  - Extending the run-time environment
    The run-time environment defines the plug-ins on which all other plug-ins depend. The run-time environment is responsible for defining a structure for plug-ins and the implementation detail behind them.
  - Extending the test log viewer
    After running a test, the test results are saved in a test log. Use the Test Log viewer to check the results for specific events, such as the script start and end, loop, invocation, message, or verdict.
  - Extending evaluation results
    Reports are a specification of how performance test data should be extracted from the statistical model and presented to the user.

Protocol extension structure

Before organizing your extension, note the restrictions and guidelines provided in this topic.

Restrictions

The following restrictions apply to plug-ins:

The execution portion of the plug-in must be deployed to an agent. You cannot assume that the Software Development Workbench is available.
The execution portion of the plug-in code cannot depend on any workbench code.
The execution portion of the code cannot depend on the workspace because none is available on the agent.

For best results, minimize the amount of code that is deployed to the agent for execution.

Guidelines for naming plug-ins

Most base HCL OneTest™ Performance plug-ins follow this naming convention:

<prefix>.<component>[.subcomponent].<protocol>

where:

prefix: The prefix com.ibm.rational.test.lt is used for all load-test-specific HCL OneTest™ Performance plug-ins.
component: One of the extension components:testgen, datacorrelation, testeditor, codegen, execution, or models.
subcomponent: Some plug-ins contain subcomponents (for example, execution.ui contains the UI portion of execution), or they might have separate code based on their use in a different component (for example, datacorrelation.testgen and datacorrelation.execution).
protocol: For example, http, or sap. (Some plug-ins use core for the base plug-in.)

Using these conventions, the extension can have the following plug-ins:

com.ibm.rational.test.lt.recorder.protocol
com.ibm.rational.test.lt.testgen.protocol
com.ibm.rational.test.lt.models.protocol
com.ibm.rational.test.lt.testeditor.protocol
com.ibm.rational.test.lt.sdksamples.datacorrelation.testgen.protocol
com.ibm.rational.test.lt.sdksamples.datacorrelation.execution.protocol
com.ibm.rational.test.lt.codegen.protocol
com.ibm.rational.test.lt.execution.protocol
com.ibm.rational.test.lt.execution.results.protocol

Alternatively, you can divide the code into two plug-ins, one for the workbench and one for execution. This has the advantage of deploying fewer plug-ins. For an example, refer to the Siebel extension to Performance Tester.

Using this method, you would have the following two plug-ins:

com.ibm.rational.test.lt.protocol
com.ibm.rational.test.lt.protocol.execution

Within these plug-ins, you can either arrange the components in one of two ways:

As separate source folders
As separate packages within a single source folder