Topic: Integration Testing Solutions

What methodology is appropriate for testing enterprise integration?  The answer is that with the proper tools, testing integration can fit into most any methodology. The challenge is that most project teams are trying to test integrated systems with GUI or code-based tools, which is not where the complicated aspects of integrated systems lie. Traditional GUI tools only scratch the surface and validate the contents of screens. In order to validate hundreds of thousands of alternative paths through an integrated system, the focus needs to be on the integration. Without tools that expose and automate the testing of integration, teams are forced to write stubs and harnesses, perform blind traces, form ad-hoc diagnostic teams, and coordinate extensive conferences.

With automated integration testing from Solstice, QA teams can take control of integration testing. They can capture the knowledge of business analysts and middleware specialists within test scripts. Using clear formatting of complex messages, QA staff can diagnose and repeatedly test integration with the same ease they test applications.  Solstice transforms complex message streams into easy to read, field-by-field reports. Errors can be drilled down to and displayed in color. Solstice also integrates with leading test management tools like Mercury TestDirector so that tests can be run and metrics consolidated in a familiar, standard environment.  

Most methodologies include early testing steps. Unavailable systems pose a unique challenge to integration testing. Testing early is often impossible without the availability of the system on the receiving end of the integration. Whether being used by developers in a unit test or QA staff in an end-to-end test, Solstice provides a Simulate module that emulates missing systems. Simulate allows integration testing to begin early in the development cycle when most methodologies recommend testing steps occur.  

With repeatable integration test automation, integration projects don’t need their own unique methodology. With the proper tools, virtually all development methodologies can be implemented on integration projects.

In the world of integrated systems, the mantra is “It’s not done until the integration is done.” Traditional methodologies emphasize code testing and code coverage. In integrated projects, the requirements of a module need to include the validation of all of the inputs and outputs to a given component.

Requiring testing of integration at the unit level poses several challenges. Often the systems needed to test integration are inaccessible. Even more problematic is when the full range of integration alternatives are not completely understood by the person coding an individual component.  Automated integration testing can capture a business analyst’s or integration subject matter expert’s knowledge within test cases and provide a developer easy access to the permutations and combinations needed to detect integration defects. In the case of inaccessible systems, Solstice’s Simulator replaces missing systems with a rules-based application emulator. A library of simulators makes it possible for developers to test on their own timetable and stay on schedule.