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To: dcns-dev@MIT.EDU
Cc: alexp@MIT.EDU
Subject: FYI
Date: Tue, 05 Dec 1995 15:07:53 EST
From: Alex T Prengel <alexp@MIT.EDU>
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Date: Tue, 5 Dec 1995 12:05:26 -0800
From: pulse@pure.com  (Pure Pulse Quarterly Newsletter)
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To: alexp@MIT.EDU
Subject: Pure Software's PurePulse


*************************************************************************
*News Flash: Pure Software Acquires Performix Client/Server Load Testing*
*************************************************************************

This is a special and short issue of the PurePulse.  

Load testing is a critical part of testing all multi-user applications. 
More applications fail in production from multi-user problems than from
any other reason.  If you are responsible for a multi-user application
then you should probably be doing load testing.  

The alternative to load testing is to roll out an application 
and find the multi-user problems when there are 100 or even 1000 
live users in the field.  This is not recommended.  

Customers generally think they will use load testing to "verify" an
application works well with many users.  In reality, they find they are
successfully using load testing to locate & remove serious multi-users errors 
during the load testing phase - errors that would have crashed the production 
system when that Nth user logged in.  Load testing is something all
multi-user applications should go through prior to deployment.    

The technology leader in load testing is Performix, Inc., 

  Performix's sales have doubled each of the last two years;
  Performix's customers include all of the major server vendors including
        Compaq, Sun, HP, IBM, SGI, Sequent, and others;
  Performix's customers include all of the major database vendors including
        Oracle, Sybase, Informix and others;
  Performix's customers include major IS organizations such as Federal Express,
        Dow Jones, and hundreds of others;
  Performix's customers include major integrators such as Anderson Consulting,
        Computer Sciences Corporation, and others.

All of these customers, and hundreds more, are fully reference-able.  Call
us for a sampling of Performix references in your industry segment.  

Performix's products include:
  PurePerformix/CS for client-server applications from a PC client connected 
        to a database, Tuxedo, or Web server.  
  PurePerformix/TTY for load testing character based applications.
  PurePerformix/X for load testing X Windows based applications.

These products were formerly knows as Performix Inc's Empower products.  

PurePerformix's partners are some of the GUI testing companies (SQA, Segue, 
Mercury Interactive, Direct Technology).  These companies, in addition
to GUI testing, do themselves small scale (2-30 users) load testing using 
a technology called "Parallel GUI Testing."   Using this technology GUI events 
are fed in a coordinated manner to a dozen or two spare client PC's which
in turn drive the server with 12 or 24 users.  This is the ideal technology for
smaller departmental systems.  The beauty of this hardware-based load testing
it is that the same GUI-event scripts that drive the GUI testing can drive
this departmental-level load testing.  Of these GUI testing companies we 
have a partnership agreement with Segue Software, and are working closely 
with SQA on a strong relationship.    

For testing 30 to 3000 users, a software-based load testing solution is
required.
In software-based load testing a driver machine simulates 1000's of PC-based
applications talking SQL, Web HTTP, Tuxedo, or other protocols to a server.  
The key technology here is to be able to record the client-server traffic
in a high-level editable ascii script, from which simulations of hundreds of 
users are built.  

Performix's only competitor in software-based load testing is 
Mercury Interactive's LoadRunner/XL.   This Mercury product does not
have the ability to record client-server traffic (such as Oracle, Sybase, 
or Informix SQL, Web HTTP, or Tuxedo) so the load testing staff has to write
tests from scratch.  This is a formidable task.    

Because of this Mercury limitation Performix wins nearly every 
opportunity against Mercury - when the customer knows about Peformix which in 
the past has been infrequently.  Performix has been a great technology
company, but hasn't spent much on marketing.  Pure's plan is to keep
the technology excellence, but also add some marketing visibility.  

We are very happy to welcome Jeff Straathof, Performix CEO and Founder, 
and his entire team including co-founders Ching-Ho Fung and Ray Straathof.
Jeff and his team will be running the Performix business unit for
Pure Software.  The merger became fully effective Tuesday the 21st
of November.  

Please contact Pure Software for more information at:

        1-800-353-7873
        info-ppx@pure.com
        http://www.pure.com


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