Recording or creating manually IBM MQ virtual services?

The two most common ways of creating virtual services/mocks/simulators in Traffic Parrot for systems communicating with IBM MQ queues is either recording the messages to create Traffic Parrot request to response mappings or creating the request to response mappings manually based on the system under test documentation.

Both approaches have their pros and cons. The table below contains a high-level overview of the major differences between them. The right solution in your case might be either or a combination of both approaches. Please reach out to us in case you have specific questions regarding your current project  https://trafficparrot.com/contact.html 

	Create virtual services/mocks/simulators manually by recording IBM MQ messages to the real service/API	Create virtual services/mocks/simulators manually by providing sample IBM MQ request and response messages based on API/service documentation
The real service/API has to exist	Yes	No
Requires reconfiguring of the system under test to point at virtual queues	Yes	No
The virtual services built are real examples from a test environment, not just hypothetical ones based on documentation	Yes	No

Key to the table:

Yellow - a potential risk factor

Green - typically a risk-free area