Virtusa recently briefed NelsonHall on its Pegasystems application testing IP and service offering, and specifically the newly launched ADOPT testing framework, which illustrates the growing maturity of testing services offerings.

Virtusa was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Westborough (Massachusetts) with large delivery facilities in India and Sri-Lanka. The company largely provides application services and is structured around seven practices: software testing, business process management (BPM), enterprise information management, customer experience management, mobility services, cloud computing, and mobility.

Virtusa had revenues of $479m in FY 2015 (ending March 31, 2015), and a non-GAAP operating margin of 14.3%. The company had a headcount of 9,818 at the end of Q1 FY 2016 and the company’s market cap is ~$1.6bn.

Virtusa is a global top ten IT service partner for Pegasystems and has a background in software product engineering, initially working for Pegasystems as one of its main engineering partners to develop and maintain applications. Virtusa helped develop Pega’s PRPC application and later on expanded to service clients implementing Pegasystems applications. Virtusa then created a BPM practice (which has grown to 1.2k personnel) and several vertical templates (insurance industry, claims processing and underwriting for healthcare insurance, plus telecom & media).

Virtusa has also developed a specific Pegasystems application testing capability, and maintains IPs in its testing practice, Independent Software Quality (ISQ). This is very significant, with ~ 25% of ISQ’s testing headcount working around Pegasystems applications. In 2015, ISQ launched its Accelerated DOmain solutions for Pega Testing (ADOPT) service, and currently has implemented the approach in four main clients, including a tier-one U.S.-headquartered insurance firm.

Virtusa ISQ has grouped the following components into its ADOPT service offerings, with consulting provided by Virtusa or by the professional services arm of Pegasystems:

• Point solution IPs, e.g. a pair-wise testing tool based on diagrams for optimizing the number of test cases
• H-Map, a tool for identifying the impact of changes in functionality on test cases
• ERA Insight, its own static code analyzer, targeting developer engagement in addition to top-down code quality governance
• A repository of re-usable test cases (2k) specific to Pegasystems applications.

ADOPT also has Pegasystems-specific features including some form of service virtualization. It also uses the automation testing framework (VTAF) of Virtusa ISQ, which is based on natural language scripting and has the two traditional benefits of scripting that can be done by non-automation experts, and independence from the test execution tool.

The main benefit of ADOPT is to structure in a consistent manner Virtusa internal and Pegasystems external capabilities and technology. This type of approach is somewhat new in the market: it has been present around SAP applications but less so around a tier-two ISV such as Pegasystems. This is promising, as it shows the growing maturity of testing services offerings.

Also worth highlighting is VTAF’s capability of backward-engineering test scripts back to VTAF’s natural language in a relatively automated manner, and re-generating test scripts for different test execution software. 

There is potential in this: there has not been a massive client migration from test execution commercial software products to similar open source tools. Yet, in mobility, defect management, and performance testing, the use of open source tools is expanding largely for new digital projects. NelsonHall is therefore expecting test open source tools to become pervasive and not only for digital, as clients will be more comfortable using those tools at a corporate level. In the past, one of the main issues was what to do with estates of proprietary test scripts. The good news is that tools like VTAF help alleviate this vendor lock-in and help regenerate test scripts from one scripting language to another.