After 7 years with the same runtime engine (now refereed to as the Old Runtime Engine) SeqZap has now changed to our new runtime engine.
This runtime engine is faster, better and more future proof, but the primary reason for switching to it is that the new runtime engine is free of the memory leaks that plagued the old SeqZap Runtime Engine. (please note that the old runtime engine only leaked memory inside SeqZap Studio, when running SeqZap on the command-line there was no issue).
Making SeqZap memory leak free, means that SeqZap can run for any length of time. This widens the use of SeqZap to long-running tests, such as load and stress testing.
The chart above shows the memory use of a running SeqZap test over 257 hours of continuous test using the new runtime engine, after the initial start-up time, the memory use stabilises at around 600 MB.
Although the primary reason for the new runtime engine, is memory leaks, the switch also increase performance noticeably. For example when calling procedures, as the following table show:
| Test Case | Old Runtime Engine | New Runtime Engine |
|---|---|---|
| Call Sub-Procedure 10.000 times | 33902 ms. | 6041 ms. |
| Call Sub-Procedure 10.000 times (no logging inside sub-procedure) | 33328 ms. | 4842 ms. |
The new runtime engine is available immediately as an upgrade inside SeqZap, and all new versions of SeqZap from 5.4 and onward use the new runtime engine.
We recommend upgrading to the new version and reporting ANY problems that we have not spotted to CIM Software Testing.
Finally we would like to thank all our customers who have provided invaluable input for the alpha and beta releases of the New Runtime Engine while it was still under development.