Infrastructure—a structured platform of networked elements required to deliver services—is proliferating at an explosive rate.

Infrastructure is a critical and strategic component of every business. To protect a company’s brand promise, the infrastructure must be adequately and thoroughly tested. Optimizing testing for infrastructure is a problem that must be addressed and solved now. Organizations must be able to communicate, collaborate, and connect to share test information to deliver quality of service and to deliver high customer satisfaction. The brand is the promise an organization makes to its customers, and the infrastructure delivering real business value must deliver on that brand promise.

Most organizations struggle with the challenges of application and product development and delivery. Lifecycle virtualization fundamentally transforms the lifecycle and eliminates many of the common challenges faced by development and test teams. The stunning success of server virtualization technology in limiting server sprawl, reducing energy consumption, and lowering capital expenditures (CAPEX) raises the question—what can we virtualize next? The answer is almost anything and everything—especially in the lifecycle. Lifecycle virtualization and its associated technologies assist development, test, and operations teams in cutting the Gordian Knot of schedule, cost, and quality.

Software has expanded its reach to become responsible for business processes, consumer purchases, transportation, communications, and devices that are always on and, in some cases, life-critical. The stakes of making sure that proper testing occurs at all levels are greater than ever. Testing is a comprehensive and critical part of the entire lifecycle. Today’s business executive must be able to guarantee working software free of defects to avoid compromising business, safety, or security.  

This Market Mover Array™ report examines the history of the testing market and analyzes the vendors vying to move the market beyond the status quo.