No matter how much the landscape of software development evolved in the past few decades, the mainframe technology still remains at the core of many industries. Whether it is banking, retail, healthcare, finance or government systems, mainframe still continues to rule the core operations. Reasons are many like robust architecture that can run huge numbers of transactions at the same time, impeccable security that shields it against cyber attacks, easy maintenance that has made it irreplaceable even after decades of usage. Due to all of its benefits companies rely on these systems to manage their sensitive data and process millions of transactions.
Yet, with the evolution of business, companies’ expectations rise too. They now want faster release of the mainframe solutions, seamless integration with modern applications and an agile development process. These upgrades in the mainframe systems have called for newer ways of testing. Companies can no longer continue the same testing method they have been following for decades. Manual testing has started showing its limits to test mainframe systems in the modern context. Hence, mainframe test automation has emerged as a latest methodology for the quality assurance of modern mainframe systems that are expected to keep pace with the digital transformation.
In this article, we will understand how automation works best for mainframe testing, the various benefits it offers and what lies in the future for this strategy.
Understanding Mainframe Test Automation
Mainframe test automation is the method of testing mainframe applications through automated test scripts generation, execution and reporting instead of relying on manual testing. Manual testing used to be the only way to test mainframe systems until a decade ago that had many limitations like:
- Delayed release cycle due to slower testing process
- Higher cost, effort and time involved in validating all the functionalities manually
- Prone to human errors
- Difficult to scale along with the growth of application
Automation testing came as a one-stop solution for all the above challenges of manual testing. Companies are no longer required to wait for long periods of time to release their latest updates. Errors got eliminated completely and scalability became much easier. We will discuss them all in detail in the further sections.
Key Benefits of Mainframe Test Automation
As we mentioned earlier, automation added more strength to the overall testing process of the mainframe systems. As companies started realizing the immense benefits of automation, their adoption became a widespread trend in the digital transformation journey. Below are those benefits of automation.
Faster and more efficient
By using automation companies can finish their test cycles in hours as compared to days and weeks needed earlier with manual testing. This became increasingly useful in agile and DevOps methodologies.
Increased accuracy
As the automated mainframe testing tools validate the test scenarios through hard coded program logic, there is hardly any chance for an error to be missed. It has completely eliminated the errors that were prone to human testing.
Saving cost, effort and time
Companies can now cut costs at various levels using modern testing strategies. This is mainly because of the reduced time it takes to complete the automated testing that results in considerable reduction in the cost too. Testers’ job has also become much easier by delegating the repetitive and low-value tasks to an automation tool thereby enhancing their job satisfaction.
More scalable
As the solution grows with time, automation tests adapt to the pace of transformation. They are able to test a wide range of transactions with huge datasets and complex integrations. All that a tester needs to do is to generate the test scripts and provide dataset and specify the particular areas to test for and just hit run. The tool will finish running the test case with the provided parameters in no time.
Latest Trends in Mainframe Automation Testing
The vendors of automation testing tools are well aware of the latest trends companies are following to modernize their mainframe systems. Hence, to keep up with them, the tools are getting evolved too with ever newer features being introduced in them.
DevOps integration
Gone are the days when mainframes used to run in isolation. Today they are being increasingly integrated with DevOps tools. Modern mainframe automation test tools come with enhanced features to test mainframe integrations with CI/CD pipelines.
AI-driven testing
AI-powered testing tools similar to testRigor are taking mainframe testing to a totally new level. With state-of-the-art features like machine learning, predictive analytics, and self-healing, these tools generate test cases automatically, predict high-risk areas, and reduce maintenance overhead.
Shift-left testing
Testing has now become a proactive approach in the modern context. Teams can now perform unit and integration testing at the same time as soon as the code has been updated. This prevents the errors from occurring downstream.
API testing
Mainframe systems are getting increasingly integrated with modern applications through API. The send and receive requests, the data exchange and the secure connection – these are all the different scenarios that must be tested to ensure an effective API testing. Automation testing tools can perform this kind of testing much effectively to make sure the connections are reliable and well performant.
Cloud-based solutions
Mainframe is no longer restricted to on-premise environments that require desktop app testing. Few companies have also started providing mainframe solutions in cloud. The virtualized environment becomes more suitable for automated testing and thus gaining more popularity among modern software firms.
The Road Ahead
Looking at the latest trends in mainframe testing, it becomes clear that the role of automation is only going to become more significant in the future. DevOps tools and digital transformation have already become the core strategy for growing companies. Companies that are still relying on mainframe solutions to execute their core operations are bringing the system into their modern agile workflows and apps. The test automation vendors are also enhancing their tools to provide best features to test legacy systems like automated test generation, plug-and-play integrations and better support for legacy languages like COBOL or PL/1. A complete integration testing suite is on its way that can test the mainframe system not just in isolation but also validates the end-to-end business process. In 2025 and ahead, organizations that combine their mainframe solutions with automated testing tools will have a competitive advantage over others.
