The hardware-provisioning technology of Silk Central helps you manage test environments that include numerous execution servers. Rather than having to configure a one-to-one direct relationship between each execution server and execution plan, keywords enable Silk Central to select the most appropriate execution server for each execution plan. This is done through dynamic comparison of an execution plan's keyword list with the keyword lists of all active execution servers.
Keywords typically describe the environment of an execution server, for example platform, operating system, and pre-installed applications. When an execution plan is executed, Silk Central compares the execution plan's keywords with the keywords of all available execution servers. The execution is then run on the execution server that matches the execution-plan's keyword list. If there is no matching execution server, the execution will not be run. If there are multiple execution servers with matching keyword lists, the execution will be run on the first identified execution server.
For physical execution servers on which Silk Test is installed, Silk Central automatically assigns keywords depending on the installed browsers and connected mobile devices.
If you do not require hardware provisioning, you can rely on the reserved keywords that are created automatically for each execution server. In such cases, it is not necessary that you manually assign keywords to your execution servers. Instead, you can configure a one-to-one static execution-server assignment for each execution plan.
#<execution server name>@<location name>
Reserved keywords are available when assigning keywords to execution plans. They are neither available nor applicable when assigning keywords to execution servers.
In addition to the reserved keywords that are set up automatically for each defined execution server, reserved keywords are also set up for each execution server type:
Limits execution-server provisioning to physical execution servers.
Limits execution-server provisioning to virtual execution servers.
Keywords are assigned to virtual execution servers in the same way that they are assigned to physical execution servers. When you configure at least one virtual execution server, the #VIRTUAL keyword is dynamically created and made available for assignment to all execution plans. If you prefer that an execution is executed on a virtual machine, select the #VIRTUAL keyword for the execution plan. When an execution plan has neither (or both) the #VIRTUAL and #PHYSICAL keywords, the execution may occur on either a virtual or a physical execution server, assuming the settings of the execution environments are the same. When an execution-plan's keywords match multiple virtual execution servers, the first matching virtual execution server that is identified is selected.