HP announced a new functional test automation solution, HP LeanFT, which allows software developers and testers to leverage continuous testing and continuous delivery methodologies to rapidly build, test, and deliver secure, high quality applications. The solution enables organizations to achieve faster time to market, higher predictability and quality, and lower overall costs throughout the development lifecycle.

Businesses today must act with speed and agility, and continuously capitalize on opportunities to deliver new solutions and experiences, business models, and revenue streams. In software development, this has fueled the rise of Agile methodology, which embraces a continuous delivery process, rather than a phased, sequential approach. For software testing, this means developers and testers seek to “shift left,” and continuously test their applications much earlier in the application development lifecycle.

HP LeanFT embraces the shift left concept by leveraging the key tools of the modern Agile developer ecosystem. Powerful, lightweight, and cost-effective, HP LeanFT is built specifically for continuous testing and continuous delivery, and fits naturally into existing ecosystems (such as Microsoft TFS, GIT, and Subversion) and frameworks that support test driven and behavior driven development. It has powerful test automation authoring with either C# or Java, and IDE integration. Together, HP Software and HP Enterprise Services deliver a solution that is designed to provide customers with the following benefits:

■ Faster time-to-market – HP LeanFT provides a comprehensive set of tools designed to accelerate test design and maintenance, including an Object Identification Center, used to automatically generate code and abstraction models used for applications under test.

■ High predictability – HP LeanFT provides project templates for standard unit-testing frameworks, including NUnit, MSTest and JUnit, to improve collaboration and alignment between software developers and test automation engineers. This enables a reduction in the time needed to test applications, and allows developers to predict and identify defects earlier in the software development lifecycle.

■ Lower costs – HP LeanFT fully integrates with and provides plugins for popular IDEs such as Microsoft Visual Studio and Eclipse. Tests are authored in the IDEs using C# (in Visual Studio) or Java (in Eclipse). This allows developers and testers to work in the same environments utilizing the same tools.

■ Built-in security – In conjunction with HP LeanFT, HP Application Defender enables the rapid discovery of software vulnerabilities during both development and test phases, where code changes are less costly. Using runtime technology from HP Fortify, HP Application Defender does not require specialized security expertise and offers continuous, real-time vulnerability testing.

■ Trusted expertise – In support of today’s announcement, HP Enterprise Services has updated its Testing and Quality Assurance Services to support HP LeanFT projects. The new services help clients working in Agile and DevOps environments to deliver key applications faster, cheaper, and with higher quality. The services expand HPES’ Testing and Assurance capabilities for identifying and eliminating defects in the application development lifecycle management process, ultimately helping businesses accelerate time to market and deliver winning applications.

In the most recent Forrester Wave on Modern Application Functional Test Automation, Forrester stated the following: “HP UFT vision will appeal to developers…HP’s vision and three-year road map is anchored on LeanFT, which, if executed in a timely fashion, will appeal to testers and developers. In fact, LeanFT will be the bridge from UFT to the future with increased focus on Agile developers, flexible licensing, better cross-browser testing, mobile testing, and IoT testing as further key elements of the road map.”

HP LeanFT enables organizations to optimize their existing investments in HP’s market-leading portfolio of application testing products, used by over 5,000 customers globally. The new solution is integrated with HP Application Lifecycle Management, Quality Center, and Mobile Center, which allows developers and testers to reduce maintenance costs, share testing resources, and deliver new mobile applications at Agile speed. HP also introduced major upgrades to its flagship HP Unified Functional Testing and HP Business Process Testing products, including support for GIT integration as a repository option and scriptless keyword-driven testing.

“As businesses seek to move with more speed and pursue new markets, developers and testers experience greater opportunities but also greater risks,” said Raffi Margaliot, SVP and GM, HP Application Delivery Management. “HP LeanFT beautifully balances the twin imperatives of velocity and quality by allowing developers to operate in the modern Agile and DevOps ecosystem, while also leveraging our proven capabilities in application testing and application lifecycle management.”

HP LeanFT will be available in July 2015. HP Unified Functional Testing 12.5 and HP Business Process Testing 12.5 will also be available in July. Customers who upgrade to HP UFT 12.5 will receive HP LeanFT free of charge.