Web Services Test Automation: Framework & Benefits

The future of software application development is web services. They are why we have smartphones and laptops, and why we can connect our devices to the cloud for instant access.

Web services have made it possible for companies to create applications that can be accessed by any device on any platform. It doesn't matter if you're using a desktop or a laptop, or if your device is just sitting in front of you or another part of the world. You'll always have access to the same application or website.

Test Automation is a method of managing software testing, which involves automating the process of performing automated acceptance tests and manual testing activities. If any business is involved with software development then web services testing automation plays a crucial role in it. This is because it improves the quality of your software product, reduces the cost of development and maintenance, and helps you meet the deadlines set by your clients.

Web Services Test Automation Frameworks

Web Service Testing Frameworks are designed to automate the test process for SOAP and REST-based Web Services. They usually have an easy-to-use graphical user interface that lets you create test cases, run them, and check their results in real-time.

Web Service Testing Frameworks define a set of operations that must be performed by the client application to verify its functionality under given conditions (e.g., message formats, authentication protocols). Each operation is represented as a unit test case which can be executed separately or together with other operations to ensure that they all work properly together.

There are several frameworks to choose from when it comes to creating test automation for web services. The most commonly used frameworks are:

Selenium WebDriver - A browser-based automation framework that runs on top of WebDriver. Selenium's goal is to make it easier to automate web browsers.

Cucumber - An open-source software testing framework designed for Behavior Driven Development (BDD) and Acceptance Testing (AT). You can use this framework with any programming language that supports Java virtual machines. Cucumber supports various types of checks, including those based on BDD, AT, or domain-specific languages (DSL).

Behat -  It is an open-source, ruby-based, behavior-driven framework. Behat supports many different testing styles and features a very flexible DSL.

Gherkin - a Domain Specific Language (DSL) for describing user stories or use cases in detail. Gherkin serves as an interface between business people and developers by helping them communicate their requirements in a human-readable manner that programmers can understand and translate into code

Challenges of Web Services Test Automation

As you might expect, the challenges associated with web service testing automation are similar to those in any automated testing environment, but there are a couple of additional challenges unique to web services.

Because web service tests are written in an XML format, they can be difficult to read and understand. To make matters worse, web services are often tested in a so-called "echo chamber" where multiple tests are run against the same server. This situation makes it difficult to determine what's happening since you might not know which test is failing until it's too late.

In addition to this problem of not being able to determine what is going on, another challenge is how to manage all of the different tests that you want to run against your system at once. You may have hundreds of tests running against your system at any given time and having them all executed in parallel can create a lot of overhead for your test runner/scheduler process.

Benefits of Web Services Testing Automation

Faster testing

Web service testing automation helps in faster testing. When you have to test a large number of web services, you need to run them manually. Automating the process makes it easy for developers to test their web services at a faster pace.

Better quality assurance

Automated tests help in improving quality assurance by catching defects quickly before they reach the production stage where they are most likely to cause issues for users or other stakeholders involved with your product or service.

Easier development

Web service testing automation can be used to develop and maintain code faster, which will help save time and money. You can define the processes that need to be followed while developing your software application or website, and then you can generate scripts that would execute those processes automatically for you. This will help in reducing errors during development and also reduce rework time after integration with the final product.

Risk minimization

With Web Service Test Automation, you get a built-in regression test suite that automatically checks for any failures on your web service. This means that even if there is an issue in your code or another part of your infrastructure, it will still be caught by this tool.

Reusability

Because all tests run against the same target environment, they can be reused across multiple projects without having to create new tests every time you want them implemented in another project.

The automated web testing services are great but if the expectations and requirements are not communicated from the customers to the testing team through the project manager, things can get challenging. So, if you want to get maximum returns on your investment in web services test automation then make sure that before you start working on it, you have determined your end goals, KPIs, and QA process and communicated it thoroughly to your development and testing teams. This can enhance your QA process effectively.