Holodeck Customer Success - prairieFyre Software Inc

Overview.  prairieFyre creates software systems for organizations that deploy enterprise call centers and contact management solutions.  They needed a test tool that would allow them to test and monitor their application under lots of strain and "edge-case" usage scenarios like unpredictable load, simultaneous user and data management, and constrained network bandwidth - hostile states often encountered by call center applications.

Holodeck Put to the Test.  Historically, the prairieFyre QA Team had very specific problems that could not be reproduced easily in their lab environment.  As they realized the need for a good fault-simulation tool,  one tester was assigned to evaluate Holodeck to see if it was a suitable and valuable tool for reliability and fault-simulation testing.   prairieFyre's first use of Holodeck was to simulate network corruption scenarios. On the first day of testing, the software tester uncovered three serious defects that their team had been unable to test for with their previous test framework.

Next, Holodeck was put to the test on the Call Center's error handling capabilities. Again, Holodeck proved to be an invaluable tool.  The QA Team tested the application for all kinds of error handling scenarios - in a fraction of the time it would have taken without the use of Holodeck. In one day, twelve bugs were uncovered in a mature section of the application.  Most exciting was a potential ship-stopping problem in a network parsing routine that would have caused a serious issue for customers had it been allowed to ship.  The testers involved are confident that this defect never would have been found without the advanced fault injection capabilities Holodeck provided to them.

Holodeck - The New Staple in prairieFyre's Test Plans.    prairieFyre had previously heard and read positive reviews about Holodeck, but it was not until they put it in action and found serious security and reliability problems so quickly that they realized the full potential of the tool.  Since their QA Team caught many new problems in a very efficient way, their future test plans will rely heavily on Holodeck's fault injection and monitoring capabilities. Interestingly, before prairieFyre decided to commit to using Holodeck, they reviewed a tool from another notable company in the test tools market that they have a good relationship with.  During their evaluation, they discovered the competing tool had fewer useful features than Holodeck, was inoperable on multiple occasions, and was five times more expensive!

	Holodeck is a well documented tool and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to use it. You can simply follow the tutorial that is written in an intuitive, informational manner. Holodeck’s UI looks like a checklist and it is very useful, especially if you don’t have test plans written and you need to provide quick feedback.
	-Vladimir Damjanovic, QA Manager, prairieFyre Software Inc.