We currently use SilkCentral Test Manager (SCTM) integrated with our source control system via SCTM source control profiles. However, we would like to explore integrating with build artifacts checked into Maven's remote Nexus repository instead.
The idea being that the application-under-test is built and checked into Nexus along with the automated tests only if the build and the tests pass. Therefore, when QA is ready to run tests from SCTM (manual or automated), there is a well-defined combination of application build artifacts and test build artifacts in Nexus that present a more reliable target for SCTM as compared to getting the latest code from the source control system.
All of this is more relevant during active development when the code and the tests and changing daily and the builds are snapshot builds rather than formal builds with tags in the source control system that SCTM could use.
SCTM apparently has support for both universal naming convention (UNC) and Apache virtual file system (VFS) and either of these should potentially be utilizable to point the SCTM source control profiles to Nexus artifacts rather than raw source code. However, I wanted to check with the community to see if there's a simpler approach. (For example, I noted the existence of a Hudson SCTM plugin.) Also, I welcome alternative thoughts and ideas.
There are probably many solutions for solving this, I'd try the following:
Manage the build/first test/publishing steps in Hudson/Jenkins. For example by modelling it with dependent jobs, the publish job is only triggered if the tests pass. There are also more advanced gatekeeper plugins available (for example a Downstream Ext plugin) which might solve this even more comfortable.
Once the publishing is done, use the Hudson/Jenkins-Silk Central plugin to trigger the executions on Silk Central. There, instead of using UNC or VFS, I'd rather use a setup script which pulls the artifacts from the repository and prepares everything for the tests. This would allow you to use something Maven/Nexus aware to pull the correct artifacts from the repository, instead of somehow trying to make it accessible via UNC or VFS.