Adding MAR Files

You can integrate Broadcom's enterprise Service Virtualization product directly with BlazeMeter by storing MAR files in BlazeMeter. MAR files are portable copies of virtual services that are proprietary to Service Virtualization.

You can store MAR files in the BlazeMeter Asset Catalog so that you have a single place to find and view any available virtual service. You can review the basic view of the content in the MAR file and create a Mock Service based on that MAR file that runs in a Virtual Service Environment (VSE). 

• Deploy MAR Files
  • Add MAR Files Manually
  • Add MAR Files by Synchronizing with a Service Virtualization VSE
• Manage MAR Files
  • View MAR Files
  • Download MAR Files
  • Delete MAR Files

Deploy MAR Files

You can deploy MAR files:

• From the Mock Services tab:
  • To BlazeMeter VSE
  • To Service Virtualization VSE (your on-premise Service Virtualization)
• From the Asset Catalog tab:
  • To BlazeMeter VSE
• For more information on configuring Blaze VSE, see BlazeMeter Virtual Service Environments.
  For more information about connection to Service Virtualization, see Integrate with Service Virtualization.
  Note: To deploy to your on-premise Service Virtualization, you must be on version 10.5 or above and configure a connection to Service Virtualization.

Storing virtual services/MAR files into Blazemeter lets you take the work done in your enterprise deployment of Service Virtualization and leverage it in a shift-left continuous testing platform. Consider the following scenarios when migrating virtual services to Blazemeter would be helpful:

• Service Virtualization customers can store MAR files in a common repository so that a consumer of these assets can find, review, and deploy the needed Mock Service/Virtual Service to a VSE
• You use Blazemeter for performance testing and want to gain the benefit of using Mock Services to enrich performance testing, and want to use Service Virtualization assets as Mock Services
• Service Virtualization supports virtual service types that Blazemeter Mock Services do not yet support. For example, while Mock Services only support HTTP/HTTPS protocols, Service Virtualization supports a much wider range of protocols, and configuring this integration lets you mock those protocols within Blazemeter.
• You want to expose complex virtual services from Service Virtualization to Blazemeter users without requiring them to learn the Service Virtualization product.

You can import any MAR file into Blazemeter manually. To import MAR files by syncing with existing VSEs or to deploy a MAR file from the Blazemeter Asset Catalog to a Service Virtualization VSE,  you must also configure a connection to Service Virtualization.

Add MAR Files Manually

1. Log in to your BlazeMeter account and click the Mock Services tab.
2. Click Asset Catalog.
   Note: In the Asset Catalog, you should see two tabs: Transactions and MAR Files. If you do not see the MAR Files tab, contact BlazeMeter support to request access to the Service Virtualization Integration feature.
3. Drag the MAR file into the upload area, or click the area to browse for the file you want. You can upload one MAR file at a time. The file size limit for MAR files is 100 MB. An error occurs if you try to import a larger file.
   
   The Import MAR File dialog opens.
   
4. Select the Service that you want to add the MAR file to. A Service in BlazeMeter is a representation of the live service being mocked, and is important for organizing you MAR files in the Asset Catalog. The MAR file name must be unique by Service.
   To create a new Service:
   1. Click Select Service.
   2. Enter the name for your new Service and click Add Service.
5. If you want to assign one or more tags to the file, type the tag name(s) in the Tags field and press Enter.
   • Tags make files easier to identify, especially within a large Service.
   • Common tags include project data, version/history data, and type of virtual service.
   • To enter multiple tags, press Enter after each tag name.
6. Click Import.
   The MAR file is added to the MAR Files tab as part of the selected service. 

Add MAR Files by Synchronizing with a Service Virtualization VSE

After you integrate with Service Virtualization, you can import any MAR files that are deployed to existing VSEs into the Asset Catalog. MAR files imported from a VSE are organized into a unique service that identifies the VSE by name and the unique ID of the VSE.

Consider the following before you import MAR files by synchronizing with a VSE:

• Imports are based on having an established SV bridge to integrate with a Service Virtualization instance. No other Service Virtualization credentials are required for the import.
• You will import all virtual services from all integrated VSEs. You cannot choose individual VSEs to import from or individual MAR files to import.
• If you are reimporting from a previous synchronization, the import overrides any MAR file if its name already exists in the Asset Catalog for the VSE.

1. Log in to your BlazeMeter account and click the Mock Services tab.
2. Click Asset Catalog.
   Note: In the Asset Catalog, you should see two tabs: Transactions and MAR Files. If you do not see the MAR Files tab, contact BlazeMeter support to request access to the Service Virtualization Integration feature.
3. Click Import on the Import Virtual Services from VSE panel to import from a VSE:
   
   If you do not see the Import Virtual Services from VSE panel, that means you have not successfully created a connection to Service Virtualization.
4. Click Import on the message that appears:
   
   Note: Only one import can occur at a time. If an existing import is in progress, the new import cannot start.
   When the import process begins, the user who initiated the import can view the import progress:
   
   After the import completes, a confirmation message appears:
   
   
   
5. Click the link in the message to refresh the Asset Catalog page and view the updated MAR files. 
6. (Optional) Click Last Import in the Import Virtual Services from VSE panel to review the results of the import process and see any errors that might have occurred.

Manage MAR Files

View MAR Files

In Asset Catalog, MAR Files tab, you can see if the MAR is already running and what the endpoint and location is.

After import, expand a MAR file to view information about the file:

From this view, you can update the Service to which you assigned the MAR file, add Asset Catalog tags, add a description, download, delete the MAR file, or view if it is running on a BlazeMeter Service Virtualization Environment. The rest of the information is read-only data pulled from the MAR to help you understand the underlying Transactions. All of this data is configurable in Service Virtualization. If you need to make any changes, download the MAR file and open it in Service Virtualization.

MAR File Information

Here is a summary of the information you can view about the MAR file:

Name
Specifies the name of the MAR file in Service Virtualization. You cannot change this value in Blazemeter.

Transport Protocol
Specifies the transport protocol used by the virtual service. You can import MAR files that include any protocols supported by Service Virtualization, even though Blazemeter Transaction-based Mock Services only support HTTP/HTTPS.

Virtual Service
Specifies the source virtual service name. This information is important if you need to find and view the virtual service within the DevTest Portal.

Transactions
Specifies the number of transactions in the virtual service.

MAR Tags
Displays any Blazemeter tags to help you store and find your assets later.
Note: The MAR Tag is different from the Mock Service Tag that is used to group MARs together to bulk deploy at the start of a BlazeMeter test.

Think Time Scale
Displays the think time scale setting in Service Virtualization, which controls how long the virtual service waits before acting on a received request. This is similar to the Think Time setting within a Mock Service. Within Service Virtualization, this is a percentage that derives a realistic think time based on recorded data and accounting for any overhead processing time.

Concurrent Capacity
Displays a number that indicates the number of processing threads allocated to handle requests to the virtual service within Service Virtualization. This value typically only applies to virtual services deployed to a VSE in Performance mode.

Group Tag
Displays any group tag values specified in Service Virtualization. The group tag is a value that lets you build groups of virtual services in Service Virtualization.

Stateless Signatures
Lists the stateless requests included in the virtual service. Stateful requests are not shown and must be viewed directly in Service Virtualization. Each stateless request can have a meta matching criteria and several transactions that include different matching criteria in the form of different values for arguments.  You can drill into each request to see meta request and response information, and use the arrows to navigate through the individual transactions for that request. This view only shows up to five transactions per request, even if there are more than five in the service. All of this data is read-only, but this view lets you understand the nature of the transactions as you build tests that will call the virtual service.

Download MAR Files

Follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Asset Catalog and click the MAR Files tab. 
2. Expand a MAR file to view the details.
3. Click the Deploy MAR file icon. 
   

Delete MAR Files

Follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Asset Catalog and click the MAR Files tab. 
2. Expand a MAR file to view the details.
3. Click the Delete MAR file icon.