Software testing these days frequently takes place in virtual environments. It is simple to install, inexpensive, and convenient to use Virtual Machines (VMs). However, when testing apps that communicate via COM ports (such as those hooked up to serial devices), things become complicated.
That is where Virtual COM Port Monitoring comes in. It bridges the gap between serial physical communication and virtual testing. You can also use a serial monitor which will be helpful for you to analyze the data. Let’s break it down simply and learn how it makes the life of software testers easy.
What Is a Virtual COM Port?
First, let’s understand what a virtual COM port is. A COM port (short for “communication port”) is the way computers talk and send and receive serial data. Years ago, these were hardware ports in the back of a PC. But today, especially in VMs, we like to make virtual COM ports—software ports that pretend to be there.
These virtual ports are very useful to test software that talks with serial devices, including GPS modules, barcode scanners, industrial automation devices, or medical equipment.
The Problem with VMs and Serial Testing
Let’s say you’re trying out a medical application that reads patient data from a heart rate monitor. In the real world, you’d plug the monitor into your computer’s serial port. But in a virtual machine, there isn’t a serial port. So what do you do?
Also, even when you succeed to link the device, how are you sure about what data is being sent and received? How do you assure yourself that your app is executed correctly?
That’s the predicament. You require a tool to monitor, log, and analyze serial communication in the virtual environment. This is where Virtual COM Port Monitoring software proves helpful.
How Monitoring Helps in Virtual Machines?
Virtual COM Port Monitoring software like Advanced Serial Port Monitor allows you to:
- Create virtual COM ports that act as actual ones
- Send and receive data to test how your software acts
- Monitor the communication in real time
- Log the data for later analysis
- Simulate devices so you do not need physical hardware when testing
Let’s go back to the example of the heart monitor. You can simulate the monitor using the tool and see how your medical software responds to different heart rate values. It helps you debug, improve features, and check for accuracy, all without touching a physical device.
Let’s say you are debugging a warehouse application that talks to barcode scanners via a serial port. With virtual COM port monitoring:
- You can mimic different scanner models
- Check how the app behaves with slow or corrupted data
- Log all communication for review
- Re-run the test with ease in other VM configurations (Windows 10, 11, Linux, etc.)
- This makes testing more stable, faster, and less expensive.
Why Does It Matter?
Without serial monitoring in virtual environments, software bugs can hide until later, when it’s more costly to fix. With virtual COM port monitoring, you:
- Catch errors early
- Save money on hardware
- Speed up your testing
- Ensure better performance of your software
Virtual COM Port Monitoring isn’t some pretentious add-on, it’s a great utility that simplifies software testing within virtual machines and makes it much more efficient. As either an industrial software developer or a QA tester with a new app to test, this utility ensures things go smoothly, even when there’s no hardware in sight.