Integration projects have a very strong need for a well planned component testing phase. Integration projects are assembly oriented. We tend to think of system development in terms of “stacks” or Legos®. That is often valid for stand alone applications. However, if you look at most integrated system diagrams, they look more like Tinker Toys©. Integrated systems need to be assembled and validated one step at a time just like Tinker Toys©.

Organizations that employ automated integration testing at the unit level can combine unit tests into component tests with simple XP-like folder structures. Where unit tests are not available, Solstice’s recorders can create baseline tests in minutes, including the most complex message structures. As the component tests are built, they can be saved into a central library and used as building blocks for other tests.

Component tests can be incrementally combined until they provide a validation of the entire process flow. Once the flow has been validated, testing the permutation of alternatives that can flow across the path is the next step. Solstice’s data substitution capability makes it simple to use one test case and a file of options to cover all expected paths. Data substitution streamlines testing and test maintenance and makes testing large numbers of alternatives practical.