Progress Software has announced the availability of Progress Actional Diagnostics. Leveraging recently acquired Mindreef SOAPscope technology, Actional Diagnostics is a standalone, quality and validation desktop product that helps application developers build, test, and deliver high quality XML-based services, including SOAP, REST, and POX.

Actional Diagnostics can detect issues early in the software development lifecycle such as policy compliance; in addition, software developers can use the product to quickly understand whether a service fits their needs before any code is written. Once services are identified for use, developers can inspect, invoke, test, and create simulations for prototyping and problem solving.

Actional Diagnostics is currently in beta testing with customers and will soon be available as a free download. Developers wishing to be sent an alert when the software download is available can register at: http://www.progress.com/web/global/alert-actional-diagnostics/index.ssp.

Actional Diagnostics helps application developers, client developers and consumers meet the demands of aggressive development schedules by providing code-free problem resolution, deep visibility into service behavior and performance, quality and compliance validation. Existing Mindreef customers will continue to benefit from SOAPscope features including early service simulation, design-time policy validation, and unit, functional, regression, and acceptance testing.

Capitalizing on Actional Flow Mapping technology, Actional Diagnostics includes a new feature called Application X-Ray. With Application X-Ray, developers get a view of what happens inside their service. For example, developers can see how downstream services are being used, what messages are sent on queues, details of Enterprise JavaBean invocations, database queries, and other relevant interdependencies along their transaction path. This information helps them identify why tests have failed or why services are not performing as designed so that a service can be reengineered as needed before it moves to production.

Load checking is also included with Actional Diagnostics to allow users to test the performance and scalability of services before they are delivered to a performance testing team. With a few simple clicks of the mouse, developers can set up a load check for dozens of simultaneous threads or users per service, monitor CPU utilization and how much Java VM is being used. Developers can then review the test results immediately. By load testing early in the development cycle rather than before or during deployment, problems can be identified and fixed more easily and in less time.