The above sections covered the various test types that are available for actively monitoring the business service. However, all these test types are based on a single request-response strategy and they lack the ability to cover an entire flow of a business transaction. For example, in the case of the flight reservation service exposed by the travel portal, the tests seen so far can validate that the hosts are running fine or that the home page is functioning fine. They lack the ability to monitor a business flow or transaction. An example of such a transaction is logging into the portal followed by searching for a set of flights and saving the search in the preferred lists. While the basic tests are important to actively monitor the business service, it's equally or even more important to be able to actively monitor an actual business transaction.

OEM Grid Control provides an advanced test type that allows the administrator to record a dummy business...