Crovan announces new training courses. :: 2008-01-18
Crovan now offers training courses in the following areas: Sun Certified Java Programming; Sun Certified Java Associate; Performance and System Testing; Performance Engineering; Java Design and Architecture.


PredictorV 1.2.1 provides advanced support for Component Import :: 2007-01-03

Crovan today announced the release of PredictorV for WebSphere 1.2.1. The principal feature in this release is a Component Browser, which can be used to import beans and servlets from deployed applications. The Component Browser can access individual EAR files or directories containing EAR files. All that is required is a classpath, to enable location of java classes referenced in the files.

In this release, Crovan has continued to provide detailed information about simulation results, so that the log files now contain start and stop times, and individual server times. This information is useful to users with modelling expertise.


PredictorV helps students find and fix enterprise software performance problems :: 2006-12-08
The PredictorV tool from Crovan has been successfully used in several undergraduate/postgraduate and industrial courses at UCD, Dublin, Ireland to enable students to find performance problems in enterprise software applications and to explore how to improve the performance of these applications. Students use PredictorV to determine which parts of the application are performance bottlenecks, and then use PredictorV's modelling and prediction capabilities to evaluate possible solution or optimisation strategies. Student feedback on these courses has been very positive, and the successful use of PredictorV in an academic environment showcases what it has to offer to system developers and integrators who are concerned about whether their systems will meet their performance targets. A case study on the use of PredictorV in a UCD course is reported in http://www.cs.ucd.ie/staff/lmurphy/home/mypubs/cascon2006-camera-ready.pdf For more information about these courses (including details of which software packages and tools were used), please visit

http://www.cs.ucd.ie/staff/lmurphy/home/4032.htm http://ozimo.ucd.ie/comp4032/

and

http://www.cs.ucd.ie/staff/lmurphy/home/ase_perf-eng.htm http://ozimo.ucd.ie/ase4/


PredictorV 1.2 provides support for Complex Modelling :: 2006-09-01

Crovan today announced the release of PredictorV for WebSphere 1.2. PredictorV has been enhanced to allow the performance engineers to construct more complex models of their systems. The new modelling features include:

# Script language and callbacks: PredictorV has a simple language, based on Java, which the user can use to create variables and change their values as the interactions are executed by the simulation. For more complex requirements, PredictorV executes Java callback methods, for which the user provides the implementation code.

# Conditions: The sequence diagram can now include conditions. This allows the user to model many scenarios (such as success and failure) in one single diagram instead of drawing a diagram for each possible scenario.

# Loops: The sequence diagram can include loops, which are blocks of messages that are executed a specified number of times or as long as a gate condition is true.

# Cross-references: The sequence diagram can include a call to another interaction. The call can be synchronous or asynchronous. The performance engineer can use these features to build a sophisticated model of high level interactions calling more detailed lower level interactions under different conditions.

Other features aimed at improving the basic modelling include Vertical scaling (PredictorV now allows the user to model several application servers on a single device, thus enabling study of the effect of vertical scaling) and Throughput (the user can now view the results for throughput in the model as an alternative to response time).


PredictorV demonstrated at UKCMG 2006 Annual Conference :: 2006-06-28
Crovan, a developer of tools for analysis of performance problems in enterprise applications, exhibited their PredictorV tool at the 2006 Annual Conference of the UKCMG (UK Computer Measurement Group), a user group association of Information Technology professionals based in the UK. Conference attendees were very interested in PredictorV capabilities for finding performance problems in enterprise Java applications and supporting the modelling of solution/optimisation strategies. In addition, Crovan gave 2 well-received presentations on "Prediction of Performance Bottlenecks in Scaling Java Enterprise Systems" and "Performance Monitoring of Enterprise Java Systems". For more information on PredictorV or on these Crovan presentations, please contact John Murphy


PredictorV 1.1 provides support for Network Topology Performance Modelling :: 2005-07-25

Crovan, a developer of tools for analysis of performance problems in enterprise applications, today announced the release of PredictorV for WebSphere 1.1. This release of PredictorV enhances the product with advanced features including a model of the enterprise network topology. The full set of new features is as follows:

# Network Topology Viewer and Simulation of Topology. The performance engineer can draw a model of the network, complete the performance characteristics of the network, and assign enterprise software components to the hardware nodes. PredictorV uses the network model in its calculations of the performance of the enterprise application.

# Simulation of Server Failures. PredictorV can be used to assess the effect of a hardware failure on the performance of an enterprise application. # Dynamic Workload. The number of users in a workload model can be increased and decreased at any time, allowing the modelling of peaks in application usage.

# Generic Specifications. All of the properties in the model can now form the basis of a simulation, allowing specification of arbitrary scenarios.

Crovan believes that the extended feature set will allow its users to extend the coverage that PredictorV provides in their performance testing. In addition, the new feature set will be useful to capacity planners, who can use PredictorV to help specify the network topology that best supports their applications.


crovan to demonstrate PredictorV for WebSphere at the UK WebSphere Users Group in Edinburgh :: 2005-06-26
Crovan will present the latest version of PredictorV at the UK WebSphere Users Group June meeting in Edinburgh. The UK WebSphere Users Group is the premiere independent organisation representing the interests of UK-based WebSphere customers (large or small) and users (be they coders, technicians, architects, managers or executives), covering development, infrastructure & support. PredictorV is targeted at WebSphere, but will be able to capture performance data from other Application Servers. PredictorV reduces the time and effort required to load test a system. It signifanctly reduces the risk of performance disasters by modelling and predicting the performance before problems occur, and can reduce any fixing time by pin-pointing the bottlenecks and how much they should be optimised to meet performance targets.


Maintenance Release of PredictorV for WebSphere Version 1.0.1. :: 2005-06-01
Crovan today announces a Maintenance Release of PredictorV for WebSphere Version 1.0.1. While PredictorV is targeted at WebSphere, it will now be able to import profiles from other Applications Servers. In particular this release will address JBoss and JRun.

Several enhancements have been made to the Sample Model (included with PredictorV) so that the features of PredictorV are more apparent. Several minor fixes have been made to the Profiler Importer to fix reported bugs that arise under unusual circumstances.

All PredictorV users are encouraged to download the latest version of PredictorV. You can check your version by looking at the "About Box."


PredictorV now available for free trial :: 2004-12-01
Crovan's PredictorV is a tool which allows you to find and analyse the performance bottlenecks in your J2EE application. Andrew Lee, CTO of Dublin, Ireland-based Crovan said: "PredictorV allows users to find all the performance bottlenecks in their J2EE application in one iteration. This is complementry to load testing systems, where typically there is a cyclic effect of finding each bottleneck, fixing it, and then finding the next one". PredictorV enables users to predict the performance for different hardware and usage scenarios, and expands the testing envelope by selecting the most interesting scenarios for testing in the lab. To download your free trial version today, click here


Crovan tackles performance problems all at once :: 2004-12-01
The end of an IT project is often dogged by failure to meet system performance goals. To make matters worse, it often takes multiple fix-test cycles before the software is ready to ship, costing time and money. For any project manager embarking on a large-scale IT project, a new tool called PredictorV is a must-have. Developed by Dublin, Ireland-based Crovan, PredictorV uses predictive technology to find system performance problems earlier in the development process. Dr. John Murphy, CEO, said Crovan's aim is to "add significant value to the software development process for complex enterprise systems, by capturing, representing and predicting the performance of the whole system before deployment". Crovan was established to bring to market tools and techniques developed at Ireland's leading performance engineering research centre (PEL), based in Dublin City University and University College Dublin. For more information, click here.