Introduction
Service virtualization refers to the process of simulating
the behavior of APIs or components within an application under
test. Services are often virtualized, that is, replicated or
simulated as original services, to deliver the expected
performance and output with the desired data inputs. Often
developers and testers write the piece of code to imitate the
behavior of a real service, which is expected to deliver the
same outcome as that of the simulated system.
With the ever-increasing demand for faster and efficient
deliverables to meet the market trends, the team of developers
and testers resort to the best available mechanisms to
accomplish software development activities within low budget
and least dependency.
Implementing Service Virtualization
Performing service virtualization demands establishing a
connection between the application under test with the
virtualized services to detect underlying components to
deliver end-to-end test results. We attempt to list the
following steps towards achieving service
virtualization:
-
Capture -
the virtualized service identifies the interactions between
the application under test and the corresponding dependent
systems. The purpose is to capture data, network packets,
log files, and so on.
-
Process - the next step is to process the network protocols and other
data, captured by the virtual services and decoding it into
its own way to replicate the same behavior to deliver the
desired objective.
-
Model -
the virtual services are finally put to use and integrated
with the system under test (SUT) to create a similar
environment as that of real services.
Initially, the application to be tested and various other
components are in isolation. Upon a release requirement, the
services are identified, which are required to collaborate,
and then necessary setup is created.
For instance, an e-commerce application is being tested. It
is required that the services, such as payment gateways,
backend system, and similar other services are required to
test the complete software package. Now the payment gateway
might be a third-party service that has to be purchased or may
be unavailable due to any reason.
In such a situation developers or testers will write the code
for implementing payment gateway services to simulate a real
gateway and perform an end-to-end test to verify and validate
the desired outcome.
Benefits of Service Virtualization
Service Virtualization can be beneficial in many ways. Some
are listed as follows:
-
The time to gather and assimilate the third-party resources
consume a lot of time, therefore writing optimized codes to
execute such functionalities will reduce the time for
release cycles.
-
Quick tests and builds are ensured with service
virtualization, as teams can create virtual services and
perform tests in parallel.
-
Tests can be performed even more rigorously with customized
services, widening the scope for both positive and negative
testing.
-
Cost is highly optimized, as service virtualization
eliminates the need to look for options beyond the available
environment.
-
The concept of virtualization to test an application widens
the scope for early detection of defects, which can
facilitate the right decision towards validating the
functional requirements.
Tools for Service Virtualization
Some of the popular tools available for service
virtualization are as follows:
-
Traffic Parrot - The tool facilitates simulation of APIs and services to
enable testing microservices without having much concern
about the environment. Consumes less time and effort, which
allows developers and testers to maximize productivity when
working with cross-functional product teams, allowing faster
release time. Offers support for HTTP, file transfers, IBM
MQ, JMS among a wide range of other services.
-
UP9 - The tool offers the flexibility to automate test cases for
microservices, Kubernetes, eliminating the need to
constantly build and maintain tests, with the help of API.
Enables early detection of regression tests so that maximum
bugs can be avoided to reach the production
stage.
-
Wiremock - A simulator for HTTP-based APIs, which provides the
provision to check edge cases and failure modes that may not
be produced by a real API quite often. The tool supports
record and playback and does not require the configuration
of servers and SSL certificates.
-
Mountebank - The tool is an open-source platform that supports
multi-protocol tests for any application. With this tool,
developers and testers can perform tests for HTTP, TCS, SMTP
protocols. This tool has the least constraints in terms of
platform configuration and is frequently updated to ensure
stability.
-
Hoverfly Cloud - This service virtualization tool offers great ease for
conducting integration, automation, and performance tests.
It can be easily configured on AWS, Google Cloud and can be
scaled up according to a given set of requirements.
-
MicroFocus Data simulation software - The tool offers flexibility to modify data, network, and
performance models, without updating test conditions and
performance needs. It integrates service virtualization
features like ALM, LoadRunner, Unified functional Testing
which widens the scope for simulating any application
behavior. Enables conducting scalable and secure tests with
the least defects in the production environment.
-
CA Service Virtualization - This virtualization tool facilitates multiple developments
and testing teams to work in sync. It provides mechanisms to
test negative scenarios, performs stress tests, shift-left
testing to increase testing speed by 20%-50%.
-
MockLab - With a very friendly UI, it requires no code to configure
simulations to completely automate tests. It enables
checking for negative tests such as injecting delays,
dropped connections, corrupt HTTP payloads, and so on. The
tool saves much of the cost that is otherwise incurred on
the adoption of third-party tools and also enables
delivering more robust systems by simulating edge cases
and faults.
-
Rational test Virtualization Server - The tool facilitates continuous tests with the help of
Integration Tester, in addition to early and frequent
testing in the software development lifecycle. Few
benefits of IBM rational tools are reduction in the cost
of deployment and configuration, increased agility and
flexibility, and great alacrity for aligning with business
objectives to promote collaborative planning and
testing.
-
Tricentis Tosca - Tricentis Orchestrated Service Virtualization helps to
bring stability to the dependent systems to ensure reliable,
complete, and continuous testing. Works best for systems
that rely highly on interconnectedness to accomplish one
objective.
Conclusion
Service Virtualization will benefit the developers and
testers to overcome obstacles that often come across due to
uncertainty associated with the unavailability of dependent
components required to deliver any application. Organizations
following DevOps culture can thus work seamlessly towards
building a strong foundation towards continuous integration
and delivery with the help of service
virtualization.
