Gallagher Financial: Early Testing Shortens Time to Market

Software Magazine, Dec, 1999 by Elizabeth U. Harding

GALLAGHER FINANCIAL SYSTEMS INC. (GFS), Coral Gable, Fla., a leading provider of mortgage origination and secondary marketing software solutions, says it improved its development cycle by automating the application testing process.

The company's flagship product Gallagher Millennium, is a comprehensive mortgage management solution that covers everything from loan handling to pre-qualification to loan closing. The system runs on Windows 95 and NT, supports multiple databases, and can be run by a single user or with thousands of users. The largest Gallagher customer manages approximately 300,000 loans.

When GFS wanted to boost performance and reliability for a newly developed suite of Web tools, they looked for a testing tool.

"We were looking for one company that could give us all the different testing tools we needed." says Brian Anderson, director of GFS Labs, the company's development arm, which is located in Brentwood, Tenn. "We needed regression testing, scripting testing, and a system that could track bugs. Also important to us were ease of use and technical support."

Product stability and ease of use were primary reasons why GFS opted for LoadRunner and WinRunner from Mercury Interactive Corp., Sunnyvale, Calif.

"A big thing is that there's maturity to the Mercury products," says Anderson. "We first looked at a competitor's tool to do a load test with 100 people. It took me a week to get it to work. When Mercury came in, I could do a 200-user test within a day."

Testing paid off with GFS' new Web products, according to Anderson. For instance, early LoadRunner and WinRunner tests on GFS Data Exchange Architecture (DEA) let GFS Labs make several configuration and code changes that improved the product before the first release. DEA comprises tools for developing interfaces between Gallagher Millennium and outside services. With Mercury Interactive's tools, the GFS project team could focus on the various interfaces provided by DEA, making sure that each component performed properly.

LoadRunner lets GFS centrally control high-volume load tests and enables them to spot bottlenecks and see when the performance curve slows beyond pre-defined parameters. The products were easy to learn and are easy to use. The biggest testing challenges were "convincing management that you have to do it and coming up with a methodology to do the most testing with the least effort," says Anderson.

According to Anderson, Mercury's tools give GFS an edge in the market because the company can deliver Web products faster without post-sale surprises.