XML….The Other White Meat

If you are a regular user of the BreakingPoint Storm CTM™ you know how to quickly add Components to a simulation such as Application Simulator, Client Simulator or Security, and hit "run". Additionally, I encourage our customers to add useful names and descriptions to each of these Components and to the overall test. The reason? This information and unique identifiers are used in the reports tool, so when you give the report to your manager, or look at it a few weeks later, you can quickly discern what you were trying to accomplish. This topic seemed like a really good one to address in my first blog post and I wanted to take you through, step-by-step, some easy ways for you to accomplish this task.

NOTE: This technique is not officially supported on the BreakingPoint Storm CTM, but we are always striving to give you as many ways as possible to make your job easier.

EXAMPLE 1: Changing the Names of Simulation Components and their Descriptions

In the following example, we have the flowing:

1. Application Simulator emulating SuperCompany’s “Normal” network traffic
2. Session Sender initiating a SYN Flood, beginning one minute into the test and lasting for 1 minute
3. A Security Component initiating all Microsoft “Patch” Tuesday attacks for 2010
4. A second Application Simulator sending unauthorized traffic which SuperCompany’s Network should block (peer-to-peer, Twitter, World of Warcraft, etc.)

Now that we have the test configured, we can go back to each individual component, edit each of the names and each of the descriptions. But for larger tests with a lot of components there can be a faster way–XML. Let us look at how this is accomplished. Head up to the Test menu and hit "Export Test". As you will see from the following two images the file will be exported as a .bpt file:

The.bpt file can be opened in any XML editor and you will see all the information used to create the original simulation:

By editing the .bpt file directly in an XML editor you can quickly edit each aspect of your simulation. Let's look at the editing process and then we'll dive into importing it back into the BreakingPoint Storm CTM as the same test or a new test. Below I've opened up our file in XML Notepad, a free XML Editor from Microsoft, which does a great job of collapsing a lot of the information into easy to use chunks. 

In this example, we just want to change the NAME of the each Component and the Description. Our Four Components are located under “testmodel”:

Now, just go down the Component list, and change the names and descriptions. NOTE: You MUST also change the “msg=>Key”, or your description will only show up in the User Interface, and NOT the Reports! Look for these Components:

And change them to this:

When you are finished all of your editing, save off the file as “Example 1 Import.bpt”, and Import it into the BreakingPoint Storm CTM using Test=>Import Test:

Select the updated .bpt file:

NOTE: Some editors (including XML Notepad) add a UFT-8 BOM (Byte Order Marker) at the beginning of the file. This will screw up the formatting of your file, and the BreakingPoint Storm CTM will not import it. An easy way around this, is to copy the output from the XSL output:

Paste into Notepad and remove everything above the "modelExport" tag:

Then, just save it as “Example 1 Import.bpt”:

Below you'll see our Example 1.bpt edited and imported as Example 1 Import. The Component names are now changed along with the descriptions. No worries though, the original simulation, “Example 1”, is still on the BreakingPoint Storm CTM in case you want to keep the original.

Now that we have updated all the Component names and descriptions we will also see this come through in our detailed reports:

Using this easy technique you can edit many things directly. Next time I will dive a bit deeper into using XML to distinguish your simulation components and reporting. Stay tuned for Part 2!