Cloud, API, SOA / Composite App Testing Overview

Parasoft's comprehensive enterprise-grade solution simplifies the complex testing that's vital for business-critical cloud, API, SOA / composite applications.

Automated Test Generation

Test creation is simple: just point to a resource—or enable "record mode" and start exercising your use cases. Tests can be automatically generated from:

• Recording HTTP, HTTPS, JMS, and/or MQ traffic at multiple endpoints.
• Analyzing REST, WADL, WSDL, WSIL, XML, Schema, BPEL, etc.
• Integrations to industry platforms (Oracle/BEA, IBM, Microsoft, TIBCO, Software AG, Progress/Sonic, etc.).
• Recording from a web browser.

The generated tests are easily extended to cover additional test requirements, parameterized with data source values to increase test scope, and used to construct complex end-to-end test scenarios.

Integrated End-to-End Testing

Using automatically-generated test cases as building blocks, simply drag and drop to define complex test scenarios that exercise and validate multiple endpoints, including:

• Web interface
• Messaging layer
• ESBs
• Databases
• Mainframes

With automated setup and teardown, complex multi-layer validation, and flexible test flow logic, you can test faster, more thoroughly, and more accurately.

Easily Maintainable, Reusable Tests

Parasoft's tests promote reuse and sharing while minimizing maintenance. For example:

• Functional test scenarios are reused for regression testing, security testing, and load testing.
• Commonly-used test actions (such as a log in or authorizations sequences), tool configurations, and property settings are defined once, then reused as needed.
• Test messages, validations, and configurations are easily parameterized from data sources, values extracted from test scenarios, or variables.
• Alerts notify you when a test suite might require updating.
• Environment variables let you instantly shift test suites to different environments (development, QA, staging, production) without reconfiguration.
• Intuitive GUIs visualize message structures, making it simple to define test messages and validations for GUI-less services and APIs.

The Industry's Most Comprehensive Solution

Parasoft's comprehensive functional testing and load testing solution extends into:

• Service virtualization, which emulates the behavior of dependent applications that are difficult to access or configure for testing (3rd party apps, mainframes, databases, etc.)
• Security testing, which includes hybrid security analysis, penetration testing, and validation of authentication, encryption, and access control.
• Runtime error detection, which automatically exposes defects (e.g., race conditions, exceptions, resource/memory leaks) as tests execute.
• Development testing, which provides integrated static analysis, code review, unit testing, coverage analysis, and runtime error detection for the underlying Java, C, C++, and .NET code.

Rich Multi-Layer Validation

From the messaging layer, to the web UI, to the database and ESB, you can create assertions to ensure that business logic operates correctly. A GUI interface lets you rapidly configure common checks and scripting support enables the automation of even the most complex validations. Moreover, test suites can be automatically configured for continuous regression testing—alerting you to unexpected changes while ignoring irrelevant differences.

Easy Extensibility

The solution is designed to enable sophisticated testing without scripting. However, if you ever want to add custom functionality or logic to your tests , you can easily integrate custom scripts (Jython/Python, Java, JavaScript, Groovy, Rhino, etc.) into your testing environment. This means that almost any testing situation can be handled with ease, even if the situation is not directly supported by our solution.

Event Tracing and Validation

Message/event monitoring visualizes and traces how messages and events flow through ESBs, message brokers, applications, databases, and more as tests execute—facilitating rapid diagnosis of problems directly from the test environment. Regression controls and validations can be applied at any point in the process.

Test Management

Parasoft's solution integrates with HP Quality Center, Rational TestManager, Microsoft VSTS, Parasoft Concerto, and other commercial or internally-built frameworks to manage tests and execution results. You can correlate test cases with requirements and defects, automate scheduled test execution, and obtain consolidated results in the format you choose—or within the test management framework you already have in place.

Service Virtualization

Recent studies show that only 50% of test plans are actually executed. Access to the application under test's dependent applications (mainframes, 3rd-party services, etc.) is typically granted only in a tightly-scheduled timeframe—and so much time is required to configure the test environment that little time is left for actual testing.

Service virtualization eliminates these constraints. It enables you to:

• Start testing whenever you're ready.
• Rapidly configure the environment conditions critical to your test plan.
• Complete the desired breadth and volume of tests.
• Confidently promote the application under test to the next level.

To learn more about Parasoft's service virtualization, see our service virtualization page.