Service Virtualization: Reality Is Overrated

Software drives innovation and success in today’s business world. Yet critical software projects consistently come in late, defective, and way over budget. So what’s the problem?

Get ready for a shock, because the answer to the problem is to avoid reality altogether. A new IT practice and technology called Service Virtualization (SV) is industrializing the process of simulating everything in our software development and test environments. Yes, fake systems are even better than the real thing for most of the design and development lifecycle, and SV is already making a huge impact at some of the world’s biggest companies.

Service Virtualization: Reality Is Overrated is the first book to present this powerful new method for simulating the behavior, data, and responsiveness of specific components in complex applications. By faking out dependency constraints, SV delivers dramatic improvements in speed, cost, performance, and agility to the development of enterprise application software.

Writing for executive and technical readers alike, SV inventor John Michelsen and Jason English capture lessons learned from the first five years of applying this game-changing practice in real customer environments. Other industries—from aviation to medicine—already understand the power of simulation to solve real-world constraints and deliver new products to market better, faster, and cheaper. Now it’s time to apply the same thinking to our software.

For more information, see servicevirtualization.com.

What you’ll learn

You will learn why, when, where, and how to deploy service virtualization (SV) solutions to mitigate or eliminate the constraints of an unavailable or unready service system by simulating its dependent components  in order to deliver better enterprise software faster and at lower cost. In particular, you will learn step-by-step why, when, where, and how to deploy the following SV solutions:

• shift-left
• infrastructure availability
• performance readiness
• test scenario management

Who this book is for

This book is not only for IT practitioners on engineering, testing, and environments teams engaged in the development and delivery of enterprise software, but also for executives of companies in all sectors who need to understand and implement emergent opportunities to improve the time to market and overall competitiveness of any outward-facing business strategy that has a software application component.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Burt Klein

Chapter 1.  Introduction
● Service Virtualization Briefly Defined
● Key Practices Enabled by SV
●● Shift-Left
●● Infrastructure Availability
●● Performance Readiness
●● Test Scenario Management
● Navigating This Book

Chapter 2.  The Business Imperative: Innovate or Die
● Consumers Have No Mercy
● Business Demands Agile Software Delivery
● Increased Change and Complexity for IT
● Simulation Is Not Just for Other Industries

Chapter 3.  How We Got Here
● From Monolithic to Composite Apps
● Today’s Complex Service Environments
● From Waterfall to Agile Development

Chapter 4.  Constraints: The Enemy of Agility
● Unavailable Systems and Environments
● Conflicting Delivery Schedules
● Data Management and Volatility
● Third Party Costs and Control

Chapter 5.  What is Service Virtualization?
● The Opposite of Server Virtualization
● Creation of a Virtual Service
● Maintaining Virtual Services
● What Kinds of Things You Can virtualize
● Virtual Service Environments (VSEs)

Chapter 6.  Where to Start with SV?
● Pick a Hairy Problem
● Identify Stakeholders
● Set Real Value Goals for Releases
● Avoid Inappropriate Technologies

Chapter 7.  Capabilities of Service Virtualization Technology
● Live-Like Development Environment
● Automation Eliminates Manual Stubbing and Maintenance
● Enables Parallel Dev and Test
●● No more Availability Problem
●● Platform-Neutrality

Chapter 8.  Best Practice #1: Shift-Left
● Reducing Wait Time
● Early Component and System Testing
●● Define SV from Capture
●● Define Incomplete SV from Requirements
● Expected Results ● Customer Example

Chapter 9.  Best Practice #2: Infrastructure Availability
● Finding Over-Utilized Resources
● Virtualizing Mainframes
● Avoiding Big IT Outlays
● Expected Results
● Customer Example

Chapter 10.  Best Practice #3: Performance Readiness
● Virtualizing Performance Environments
● Informing Performance from Production
● Expected Results ● Customer Example

Chapter 11.  Best Practice #4: Test Scenario Management
● Managing Big Data
● Shielding Teams from Volatility
● Massively Parallel Regression Testing
● Expected Results
● Customer Example

Chapter 12.  Rolling out Service Virtualization
● Who Pays for Service Virtualization?
● Overcoming Organizational Challenges
●● Who Manages a VSE?
●● Should I Have More Than One?
● Key Skills and Roles in a Virtual IT World

Chapter 13.  Service Virtualization in the DevTest Cloud
● Constraints of Cloud Dev and Test
● Achieving Elastic Cloud Environments
Chapter 14.  Assessing the Value
● Key Metrics for Success
● Areas for Improvement

Chapter 15.  Conclusion
● The Industrialized Software Supply Chain
● Innovate and Thrive
● What’s Next for SV?

Glossary
About the Authors