TesLA Alliance Blog

TesLA’s TRS committee has been working hard in the past four months to define the TBML specifications based on the requirements published and reviewed during our Q1 TesLA Meeting.   We are excited about publishing the TBML standard as part of the TRS committee, a first step towards software interoperability in our respective growing domain testing ecosystem.

The goal of the TBML markup language is to have a common framework for test bed definitions – a set of hardware and software resources that define a specific set of requirements – that either can be published by DCA based components or by TRE based tools or consumed by the TRS scheduler, for example.

The TRS committee as part of their Q2 deliverables released the TBML 1.0 specifications for general public review. Please download the PDF here ( http://www.teslaalliance.org/standards.html ) or register for the TesLA forums ( http://www.teslaalliance.org/forum ) for access to the XML schema, samples, and associated graphics. We look forward to your comments to finalize the TBML specifications.

Gale Technologies will be soon introducing TesLA’s TBML support in its AutoLab product line and we encourage all other TesLA members will  do so as well, so that we can grow the TesLA ecosystem together.

Sincerely,
Patrick Deloulay,

Director of Engineering, Gale Technologies
http://www.galetechnologies.com
Chair of the TesLA TRS Technical Committee
http://www.teslaalliance.org/standards

Gale Technologies has joined TesLA alliance

In the long road to full automation, one has to take smaller steps in improving processes, tools, and technology to reach incremental and tangible progress. Lab Automation solutions can be very powerful if deployed properly in your environment, starting with asset tracking and inventory, resource allocations, utilization metrics, scheduling, and device provisioning. Gale Technologies has been providing NEMs and SPs for the past 8 years with  automation platforms and choices.

The lack of domain understanding, common automation vision, and integrations between tool vendors has forced the slowdown of automation adoption, and a crop of homegrown internal tools and glueware between tools.

We believe that the Industry has been for few years in search of higher interoperability between vendors in the same space and that the market has reached a level of maturity where standardization is no longer a nice-to-have but a must-have.

Gale Technologies has joined the TesLA alliance to drive the Lab Management SDK committee and help develop a set of specifications and products with aim to standardize the test bed definition and the integration of 3rd party test environments. Such specifications, along with a strong validation and certification program, will facilitate a more rapid adoption of automation and the convergence of a newer set of tools that comply with the TesLA alliance.

Standards are coming your way

Standardized test bed definitions are one of the building blocks of successful automation adoption. With the current trend of lab consolidations and hard economic situations, lab managers are looking for better resource management tools to facilitate the allocation and workflow of owned resources across multiple groups, usually in a distributed environment.

Test bed requirements are also under heavy scrutiny to maximize existing equipment utilization and minimize overbooking.

Take Control Back!

TesLA Test Bed Specifications will allow lab managers and users to define the proper set and level of requirements, highlighting resources and connectivity between those resources – from exclusive or shared allocations, from fine-grained to coarse-grained requirements. Such complex definitions will  give Lab Managers back control of their environment. Additionally, the specification will allow vendors to offer graphical tools to build and render the requirements in an intuitive manner.

Don’t hesitate to contact me to discuss the benefits of the TesLA alliance for the industry.

Patrick Deloulay – patrick@galetechnologies.com
Director of Engineering, Gale Technologies
TesLA Lab Management TRS Committee Chair

Gale Technologies – www.galetechnololgies.com
TesLA Alliance – www.teslaalliance.org

In an ideal scenario, we would all like our test engineers to do one thing and one thing only – test.  
And test at the highest speed, with the best coverage and the greatest depth possible.

For that to happen, an engineer needs to do two things: first, understand the Device Under Test’s (DUT) features, and then test them.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But let’s take a look at just some of the tasks an advanced testing team has to deal with on a daily basis. Implementing interfaces to control test equipment, defining and setting up testing labs, developing automated sequencing environments, integrating to databases, importing and updating configuration and spec files, debugging testing environments, parsing and analyzing returned results, and more. And all of this is apart from understanding the DUT and running the tests.

Wouldn’t it be great if all this overhead were lifted? Is that even remotely possible?

Test automation providers have succeeded in drastically reducing some of these overhead issues via integrated testing frameworks. TesLA, the Test Lab Automation alliance of IP test equipment and solutions vendors, enables testing environments to take this next vital leap forward by defining true standards of operation and integration between key test framework components. Such an environment  permits testing teams to select and construct tailored environments that combine the best solutions, without worrying about integration overhead or the hassle of updating and replacing different components.

The initial effect of reducing set-up time – and consequently testing time – will be felt immediately. The knock-on effect – allowing test engineers to concentrate on their core tasks – won’t be far behind.  Once this system is in place, product quality will increase exponentially – because test coverage, complexity and depth continuously increase.

TesLA is unique because it brings together vendors and customers as members of a powerful alliance. This collaboration will ensure that TesLA solutions bring true value to the testing world.

Finally, test engineers can return to what they do best, TEST.

Eitan Lavie

Director of Technologies

QualiSystems