IT professionals struggling to test in mainframe, survey reveals

Over three-quarters of IT leaders are finding it more and more difficult to increase quality, velocity and efficiency in order to meet innovation goals when developing and testing mainframe application code, a recent report has found.

In the global survey conducted on behalf of US software firm Compuware, it was revealed that companies think manual testing is a major hindrance to business success. 90% believe test automation to be the single most important factor in accelerating innovation. However, the investigation also found that just 7% of organizations automate tests on mainframe.

Furthermore, of the 400 IT leaders asked, 82% said that unless they can automate more test cases, they worry they won’t be able to meet their enterprises’ need for speed and innovation, with this leading to fears that the customer experiences will suffer.

Speed vs Quality

Today, speed is key to for competing with other businesses, but this can often create sacrifices in quality.

In response to this point, 85% of application development managers feel that in having to cut corners, they risk exposure to bugs and hacking.

“As customer demand for a constant cycle of new and improved digital services and experiences continues to grow unabated, speed and innovation have become the rallying call for IT departments across every industry,” said Chris O’Malley, CEO of Compuware.

“Automation and the shift to Agile and DevOps are crucial to improving the pace of innovation without compromising quality and efficiency, in response to the always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied customers that organizations are striving to serve as a means to growth,” O’Malley added.

Difficulties in testing in mainframe

When questioned on the challenges faced in test automation, 86% of respondents said they find it difficult to automate the testing of mainframe code. Whilst less than a quarter of establishments perform both unit and functional testing on mainframe code. Both these points are thought to add to the encounters that hold businesses back.

The survey was conducted by Vanson Bourne on behalf of Compuware.

 

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