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Microservices are important to the companies who want to build and deploy systems that are scalable, flexible, adaptable, and easy to develop. Automation tests are therefore needed to take things to live regularly. Microservices are modular and independently deployable as small composable components and thus are separately testable. As testing scales up from small independent microservices through integration and end-to-end testing to larger services ecosystems, it influences the testing pyramid.
So what is a Microservice?
Microservices is a part of software architecture. It involves developing single applications that can work together as a suite of small services, each running its process while communicating with HTTP resource API mechanisms. They require minimal centralized management systems and various data storage technologies and are written in multiple programming languages.
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) vs. Microservices
An SOA model is a dependent Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), whereas ‘Microservices’ use faster mechanisms. SOA focuses on imperative programming, and microservices use a responses-actor based programming style. SOA models also have outsized relational database management systems, yet microservices databases like NoSQL or micro-SQL connect to conventional databases. We can conclude that the architecture methods thus differ in how each creates an integrated set of services.
Service layer and test automation API Tests
Deploy multiple versions of service API’s in parallel and make sure that the version number appears at the endpoint address. When we create a microservice, service layer testing is complemented with API tests.
Let’s discuss five approaches to automation tests for microservices.
Unit testing
It is internal to the service and is the largest in terms of volumes. It should be automated based on development language and framework. Written at unit level or collection of units as the goal is to check parts of the software to validate for functionality.
Contract testing
It treats each service individually and independently call them to verify their responses. It also reframes testing principles and maps it to service layers of a testing pyramid. Considered a cost-effective substitute for integration tests.
Integration testing
Perform verification of the services that have been individually tested and check the functioning of inter-service communications. It validates if the system works seamlessly and that the dependencies between the services are present as expected. Limit the volume of full integration tests and write layer integration tests to ensure proper integration.
End-to-End (E2E) systems testing
E2E testing verifies if the entire process flow works correctly and includes all service and database integrations. Frameworks help automate functional testing by checking that the system behaves as expected when you deploy your application in a real-world environment.
Interface testing
User Interface (UI) testing is the final level of automation testing and checks the system in a
real-time end-user scenario before the application goes live.
The benefits of microservices in a large scale systems development is still contested. That’s why we recommend you install microservices only if a regular SOA does not meet your needs. If you are considering microservices, look no further than Codoid . As a test automation services company, we ensure that all testing is performed by the right set of qualified personnel to give the best quality output to our customers. Our testing tools accelerate testing for better productivity and shorter time to market. As automation tests are an essential requirement to create successful microservice architectures, we work together with our clients to help them deploy their products by giving them the best return on their investment with us.
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