Integration between Tivoli and Rational product lines is overdue, according to analyst Carey Schwaber, of Forrester Research.

"It's important because what IBM has is a chance to integrate operations with development by bringing [together] the Rational and Tivoli brands," Schwaber said.

The unification can help break down organizational barriers between development and operations teams, she said. Tivoli systems can detect problems with production systems and send these to developers for resolution.

"I think [IBM officials have] moved as fast as they could [with the integration], but customers have asked for this for a couple years," Schwaber said.

Also featured as part of IBM's testing rollout is IBM Rational Performance Tester Extension for SAP Solutions, which reduces risk and errors when implementing or upgrading existing SAP applications, IBM said. Built for both novice and professional testers, the extension to Rational Performance Tester offers performance testing and capacity planning and measures the performance of SAP systems before deployment. '