Web Services Solutions Overview

Effectively combines tools, services, and expertise into a practical solution for implementing Automated Error Prevention throughout the full lifecycle of N-tier Web Services systems, including development, maintenance, and operation of both client-side and server-side applications.

Make Your Web Services Work

Web services are complex systems that attempt to marry software, hardware, new code, legacy code, existing systems, systems in development, and who-knows-what on the client side. Your connection to your partners and customers depends on Web services' complete reliability, but there are countless opportunities for things to go wrong—a slight mistake in any component or interface will cause problems that ripple throughout the system. If you want peace of mind, you need to ensure that each part of the system is reliable, that all of these parts interact flawlessly, and that each modification produces the desired effect without introducing new problems. The best way to achieve these goals is to ensure that the entire Web service development team is working together to perform error prevention practices—such as load testing, functional testing, and security testing—throughout the full system lifecycle.

Parasoft’s Web Services Solution gives you a proven, cost-effective way to identify and prevent Web service errors to reduce the risk of system failures. It seamlessly incorporates error prevention tools, methodologies, and services into the full lifecycle of enterprise Web service development, maintenance, and operation. Parasoft’s Web Services Solution can be used to:

• Prevent development, deployment, and operational errors from affecting Web service servers and clients.
• Verify the quality of Web services through functional testing and load testing.
• Verify Web Service security by confirming that unexpected inputs do not violate security safeguards.
• Leverage work between development stages and development team members to reduce the overall amount of time and effort spent in production.
• Provide fully automated reports that allow Project Management to intelligently and consistently oversee the production, deployment, and operational phases of Web service development.

Parasoft’s Web Services Solution fits into any project or development process with minimal disruption. It improves how organizations build and maintain Web services by implementing Parasoft’s Automated Error Prevention (AEP) methodology throughout the organization and its full production lifecycle. The AEP methodology is a logical and practical application of W. Edwards Deming's Principles of Total Quality Management (TQM). After adopting this methodology, your organization will be fully equipped to expose errors as quickly and easily as possible, correlate each error to the production process that is responsible for introducing the error, implement practices to prevent the error from reoccurring, introduce practices and metrics for measuring error rates during all stages of development, and monitor all quality improvements.

Parasoft's Web Services Solution

In the Parasoft Web Services Solution, every role and task in Web service development is identified and brought under an automated error prevention process that uses source control and nightly build systems in conjunction with proven error prevention techniques—functional testing, regression testing, load testing, security testing, and monitoring—to prevent development, deployment, and operational errors.

Parasoft enhances these proven techniques by implementing a fully automated solution organized around the main roles in the Web service process. Each of these roles—Developers, Architects, Quality Assurance (QA) Personnel, Operations and Security Personnel, and Project Managers—is equipped with the tools and training that help them actively prevent errors throughout the entire Web service development lifecycle.

Web Services Developers — Each Developer is equipped with tools that automate error prevention when creating, verifying, and prototyping Web service servers and clients. Using error prevention tools in interactive mode, Developers verify whether their servers or clients are robust, correct, and reliable. To verify whether Web service servers will operate correctly with the wide range of potential clients, they perform functional testing, regression testing, and security/robustness testing. To verify whether Web service clients will correctly invoke the service and receive the response, they perform functional testing and regression testing. Parasoft tools work as filters to your source control system so that code that was not thoroughly tested or that contains errors cannot be added to the source code repository.

Web Services Architects — Each Architect is responsible for determining what error prevention practices should be performed at different phases of the development process, as well as designing ways to verify whether those practices are being performed thoroughly. In addition, each Architect standardizes test settings across the team's tools to ensure that all tests are performed with the required settings. Reports from automated tests help Architects continually monitor all phases of the development process. The Architects use these results to verify if required practices were completed correctly and to determine what—if any—process modifications are needed to ensure that the team prevents the maximum amount of errors. If an error is found, the Architect works with QA to determine its root cause and to modify the process so that similar errors are prevented.

Web Services QA Personnel — Each QA team member is equipped with tools that automate integration-level testing. On the test deployment area constructed by nightly builds, QA extends the Developers' test suite. Functional tests that test system-wide interactions are built by extending the Developers' functional tests, and load tests are built by leveraging the existing functional tests. In addition, all existing test cases are used for regression testing, which ensures that application changes do not produce unintended side effects.

Web Services Product Managers — Each Project Manager receives nightly reports detailing how well the process is working, verifying that each Developer and Architect is adhering to the process and that nightly builds are using only valid, checked-in code. At a single glance the Project Manager has all information needed to make important decisions concerning application deliverables and deployment, key production dates, and development milestones.

Web Services Operations and Security — Each Operations Team member is equipped with the tools needed to monitor the Web service server's performance and functionality, as well as monitor all service links to ensure that unexpected messages and inputs are not violating system security. The monitoring test suite is built by extending test suites created by Development and QA.

Parasoft Web Services Solution is implemented in five easy steps:

1. Evaluation — Parasoft's Professional Services team evaluates your development procedures and processes, gaining an intimate understanding of your overall manufacturing methods and identifying their weaknesses.

2. Customization — Parasoft customizes the solution to fit your development process. The goal is to improve your existing development process—Parasoft solutions do not revolutionize your processes but rather help your current software development cycle evolve. Put simply—Parasoft improves the way you make software.

3. Automation — Parasoft automates critical error prevention procedures and builds them into your development process, source control systems, and nightly build processes. For companies without established source control systems or nightly build processes, such systems and processes can be built and implemented—using open source applications —as part of the complete automation process.

4. Training — Parasoft trains and mentors all members of your organization to ensure that they understand the value of the automated error prevention process so that they can use the tools and techniques effectively and independently.

5. Reports — Parasoft creates the reports you need to use and maintain your solution by customizing standard report templates to your specifications. These custom reports are delivered during the final implementation phase.

The Time Has Come for Error Prevention

Parasoft’s Web Services Solution automates error prevention practices for organizations looking to improve development processes and application quality while simultaneously preventing business failures and customer dissatisfaction. Functional application areas for the Parasoft Web Services Solution include:

• Commercial software development — Improve the quality of applications you produce for end users outside of your organization.

• Creation or enhancement of internal business systems — Provide a comprehensive tool set your IT organization can use to create robust, reliable information systems for accounting, sales, human resources, and other vital departments.

• Systems Integration — Incorporate tested technologies into systems integration processes, whether merging existing business systems or third-party applications.

Whether your software system is a customer interface or will serve as the backbone for your business operations, choose Parasoft’s Web Services Solution for Automated Error Prevention – We make software work.

Features

• Automated project management.
• Automated test design and execution.
• Automated load testing for Web service servers.
• Automated functional testing for Web service clients and servers, including automatic creation of test cases from WSDL.
• Automated regression testing for Web service servers and clients.
• Automated XML and XSLT structure verification.
• Automated detection of security breaches in SOAP messages, as well as error prevention in the multi-layer message stack.
• Automated monitoring of functionality, performance, and security.
• Automated unit testing and coding standard enforcement for methods exposed through the WSDL.
• Automated deployment of Web service servers.
• Automated generation of Web service clients.
• Complete support for Web service development in C++, Java, Perl, and .NET.
• Complete support for the W3C WSDL standard.
• Tools to support Developers, Architects, QA Personnel, Project Managers, and Web service Operations and Security Personnel.

Benefits

• Produces Web service systems that work, preventing failures and customer dissatisfaction.
• Reduces development costs by making software development teams 100% more productive. As errors decrease, productivity increases.
• Prevents delays. Eliminates the costly process of rewriting and restructuring applications.
• Prevents budget overruns. Removes the uncertainty caused by errors and the necessity of finding and correcting them.
• Reduces support calls and issues.
• Supports practices required to achieve and maintain ISO and CMM certificates.
• Helps your software development process evolve and thrive.
• Integrates seamlessly into any development process or project.
• Can be implemented piece-by-piece or as a complete solution.

Read the following Parasoft technical white papers:

• Automated Error Prevention: Delivering Reliable and Secure Software On Time and On Budget - 407 KB PDF
• Putting the SOA Infrastructure Together: Lessons from SOA Leaders - 117 KB PDF
• ZapThink report features Parasoft SOAtest