SmartBear Software on Wednesday introduced loadUI Pro and upgraded soapUI, providing software testers with an integrated toolset to improve the quality of Web Services and API source code developed for today's desktop, cloud, mobile and Web applications. loadUI Pro is the first commercially available version of the popular Open Source Web Services load testing tool. soapUI 4.5, the world's most popular Open Source functional testing solution used by more than 800,000 testers worldwide to ensure the quality of their APIs and Web Services, is also now more tightly integrated with loadUI.

Today's software applications have become a complex composition of internally and externally sourced Web Services and API protocols that must be flexible enough to scale and grow, and robust enough to perform under load. To ensure their quality, it is critical to conduct meticulous functional and load testing during pre-deployment to identify and resolve problems early, as well as continuous monitoring and regression testing post-deployment to ensure ongoing quality of service and availability.

According to Gartner Inc. (Predicts 2012: Application Development, December 2, 2011) by 2014, 75 percent of the Fortune 1000 will offer public Web APIs. By 2014, all consumer-facing enterprises - and many that aren't - will treat a public Web API as equally important to a public website.

Thomas Murphy, Research Director, Gartner, Inc., said, "We truly are in the golden age of APIs. Web APIs are growing exponentially and are required for mobile and social applications, as well as for innovative forms of e-commerce that combine Web Services and contextual information to deliver a compelling user experience. This demands the ability to thoroughly test functionality and performance--pre-deployment-- essential to avoid performance degradations, for effective resource planning and avoiding cost-intensive fixes once the software is in production."

loadUI Pro
Available today, loadUI Pro offers a rich user experience and enterprise-ready load test environment that generates scalable, high-volume, real-world load from any number of local and remote computers. Now featuring server monitoring, loadUI Pro lets testers monitor the performance of Web Services and APIs under load so they can assess the impact on CPU and RAM usage, database performance and resource utilization, and identify the root causes of bottlenecks anywhere in the server stack.

To learn more, visit What's New in loadUI Pro.

soapUI 4.5
Version 4.5 of soapUI provides new features to improve the overall quality and management of testing projects. New test debugging helps users streamline test creation, improved assertion simplifies the test validation process, and multi-environment support enables quick changes between test environments. The new Test On Demand feature enables users to extend testing beyond the desktop and network by running tests from two external locations in SmartBear's monitoring cloud for free. Additionally, soapUI 4.5 provides an improved experience for Mac users and addresses several Mac OS X issues.

To learn more, visit What's New in soapUI 4.5.

Pradeep Bishnoi, Senior QA, API Testing & Automation, Thomson Reuters said, "I started using soapUI almost two years ago, and since then I have seen quite a few interesting features delivered with every release, keeping my interest alive and motivating me to use soapUI more and more. The best part is the soapUI team listens to users' pain points and with soapUI 4.5 most issues have been addressed. After working on soapUI 4.5 BETA 2, I can say the soapUI tool will become synonymous with API testing."

Niclas Reimertz, General Manager of API Testing Solutions, SmartBear, said, "In the Open Source community, loadUI and soapUI have proven themselves as powerful, free tools helping developers to test and improve their code every step of the way. Today's releases not only make testing more streamlined and easy to administer but also provide a new level of insight so that roadblocks to quality become more apparent and easier to resolve pre-production."

Free Trials

Free, 14-day trials of loadUI Pro and soapUI Pro are available at http://www.loadui.org/Downloads/download-loaduipro-trial.html and http://www.soapui.org/Downloads/download-soapui-pro-trial.html.

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