Itko

iTKO (officially "Interactive TKO, Inc.") is an independent software vendor with its headquarters in Dallas, Texas, USA.Infobox_Company
company_name = iTKO (Interactive TKO, Inc.)
company_
company_type = Private
foundation = 1999
location = Dallas, TX USA
key_people = Shridhar Mittal, CEO
John Michelsen, founder & Chief Scientist
Ruston Vickers, founder & CTO
Jim Mackay, CMO
Tim Levey, CFO
Howard Sewell, SVP Sales
Jason English, VP Corporate Communications
Satendar Bhatia, VP Strategic Alliances
num_employees =
industry = Computer software
products = LISA 4 SOA Testing, Validation & Virtualization suite
revenue = Not disclosed
homepage = [http://www.itko.com www.itko.com]

Founded in 1999, iTKO creates the LISA suite of SOA ("Service-Oriented Architecture") and integration testing software. iTKO LISA provides no-code unit, functional, regression, load and performance testing against websites, web services, Java, .NET, ESB / Messaging, databases, and many more technologies. The company's customers include Citigroup, American Airlines, Sun, WamU, Time Warner, AMD, TIBCO and i2.

Company founders John Michelsen (now Chief Scientist) and Ruston Vickers (now CTO) were operating a custom software consulting company, when they invented the test engine kernel of LISA 1.0 in 1999 to provide high-volume load testing of a Java-based trading network. Since the first commercial release of LISA 2.0 in 2002, iTKO has increasingly focused on testing the many disparate types of components and technologies that can make up distributed, Internet-based enterprise applications.

Current Product List

*LISA Load & Performance Testing: Test individual components, process, and workflows during design and development, during integration, and completed applications in deployment. Individual functional tests and system-wide business processes are load tested using the same environment and test suites, with performance reporting and error checking within each test instance.

*Virtual Service Environment (LISA VSE): An extension of Virtualization to SOA terms, LISA VSE captures and models Virtual Services within LISA that provide a behavioral simulation of the Service and its underlying implementation layers and data sets. The goal of this practice of "Service Oriented Virtualization" or SOV is to design, develop and test interdependent services in parallel, without the burden of relying on live service implementations or maintaining costly replicated test environments and data.

*Continuous Validation Service (LISA CVS): Application and system validation starts with automated Continuous Build and regression testing of services, through Continuous Deployment monitoring and validation of SOA Policies, service usage and dependencies across multiple systems, ensuring inter-component trust and governance.

*Functional Testing: Allows QA, Development, and Business Analyst teams a no-coding test client to test rich browser and web user interfaces, as well as the many building blocks and data residing below the UI. With LISA, all of the SOA and implementation layers the team needs to functionally test can now be analyzed, invoked and verified to ensure requirements are met.

*Integration Testing: Validating "the lines between the boxes," ensuring interoperability, predictable project delivery and quality for major integration platforms, including IBM MQ-Series, TIBCO, webMethods/Software AG, Oracle FUSION, BEA, Sun JCAPS, Sonic MQ, CapeClear, Fiorano and other leading providers.

*LISA Business Process Validation: Works to validate BPM (Business Process Management) tools, with a feature set for discovering, modeling and validating complex business workflows across multiple technologies, to discover behavioral and root causes of functional and performance issues.

*LISA Extension Kit (LEK): The LISA Extension Kit provides extensibility features for legacy and custom-developed components. The LEK includes methods for building custom extensions within LISA, as well as a LISA Extension API which allows developers to embed testability within code, for increased test feedback and instructions from within the application under test.

References

1. [http://virtualization.sys-con.com/read/508298.htm Virtualization Journal article byline] : "Are SOA and Virtualization Related?" March 2, 2008.

2. [http://soa.sys-con.com/read/485909_1.htm SOA World Magazine product review] : "iTKO LISA 4 SOA TestingA key enabler of broad SOA design and implementation," Paul O'Connor, Jan 21, 2008.

3. [http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid26_gci1283954,00.html SearchSOA article] "SOA Virtualization Gets Real," Rich Seeley, November 28, 2007.

4. [http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2007/09/0709Michelsen.html CrossTalk magazine byline article] : "For Net-Centric Operations, the Future is Federated," September 2007.

External links

* [http://www.itko.com iTKO Home Page]
* [http://itko.blogspot.com Founder John Michelsen's SOA Testing & Validation Soapbox] industry blog.