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Microservices testing 101

A complete guide to all microservices testing FAQs

Introduction

Microservices testing is a combined effort of multiple QA activities that ensure each microservice is functioning as intended with stable performance, and its system shortcomings fail to result in severe functional disruptions of the entire software, assuring that all microservices seamlessly function as a single application.
Full-scale microservices testing is deployed to ensure the quality of software systems.

Microservices testing categories include

  • Multi-level functional testing,
  • Regular regression testing,
  • Performance and Security testing.

Microservices testing team members: Include a QA manager, manual & test automation engineers, and a test automation architect. A full scope of microservices testing activities ranges from high-end consultancy to providing customizable professional microservices testing services to deliver maximum quality of customers’ software.

Microservices testing setup plan
A microservices testing setup plan depends greatly on the SDLC stage of the microservices project and the software requirements specifications.

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Outlining the industry standardized steps -

1. Microservices testing process designing

Duration: Almost 1 week

  • A QA manager is assigned to assess the testability criteria for the microservices software product requirements.
  • A set of KPIs relevant to testing microservices are targeted. KPIs are mapped as the number of defects found and test cases/scripts developed per iteration/ sprints, test cases’ granularity, test scripts’ maintainability, product stability, robustness, etc.
  • A risk mitigation plan is designed to overview the relevant risk potentials of the microservices testing project.

Best practices: As every microservice is deployed independently, it integrates a test engineer for each cross-functional microservice team with collaboration scenarios between the respective test engineers for mutual coordination and prioritization of the combined testing activities.

2. Microservices testing preparation

Preparation for the microservices testing process is based on the sourcing model

Integration, component, and contract testing

The test teams must execute:

Developing Integration test cases (validating all communication pathways and mutual interactions between components within each microservice).
Component test cases (checking on a microservice behavior with the help of API mocking tools).
Contract test cases (checking on the real communication between microservices).
These testing types comprise the majority of microservices test suites.

Performance testing

Includes load, stress, endurance, and scalability testing at both:

  • Microservice level (specifically when a microservice is deployed).
  • Application level (when all the microservices are deployed together).

Regression testing

Avoid application breakdowns on introducing new services or iterations in API evolution, a test engineer within each microservices team attests to their microservice interactions with its dependencies.

Microservices testing launch

Duration: 2 weeks

Launch the microservices testing process by

  • Selecting and configuring the test environment.
  • Starting to develop test cases and test scripts.
  • Initiating manual or automated test data generation.
Microservices testing consultation

Involves analysis of the microservices application architecture and requirements, and the existing QA process.

  • Developing QA strategy, microservices test plan, test automation strategy, and architecture design.
  • Selecting tools and frameworks optimal for the microservices testing project.
  • Budgeting cost and ROI calculation.
  • Optimal sourcing model selection.
  • Developing QA strategies, microservices test plan, test automation architecture design, and optimal testing tools and frameworks configuration.
  • Test environment setup and automated test data generation.
  • Test automation script development and maintenance.
  • Comply with microservices test artifacts with ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-3:2013, with regular detailed defect reports and a test closure report.
The Benefits of Microservices

Cost optimization

Optimizes testing costs to implement effective methodology, optimal resource utilization, and risk-based approach to testing.

Reduced testing time

Optimize test time, overcome all the bottlenecks, and decide on automation testing shares

Domain expertise

Ensure effective collaboration with the product’s business team.

Tools
  • Jmeter ( API testing)
  • SoapUI (API Testing)
  • Postman ( API testing)
  • Apache Jmeter ( performance testing)
  • Silk Performer (load testing)
  • LoadRunner(Performance & load testing of APIs)
  • Tricenties Neoload(Performance & load testing of APIs)
  • Slack (remote communication tool)
  • Chaos Monkey ( Resilience testing)
  • Gremlin (Resilience testing)
  • Locust ( Load testing for API using Python)
  • ZAP (API security testing)
  • Gatling (API testing) –
  • InfluxDb (database management)
  • Hoverfly (API testing)
  • Grafana ( data visualization and monitoring tool)
  • Amazon Cloudwatch (AWS monitoring)
Microservices Testing at Thought Frameworks
Microservices testing is a crucial step in the software development lifecycle that focuses on making sure that both individual microservices and the broader system made up of several microservices are functioning as intended and meeting the requirements of the business and end users.
Significance

The developers choose microservices design for its modular properties, the key benefactor for deploying Microservices testing, to easily develop and test than the usually complex software architecture. Overcoming challenges while the application is continuously evolving which makes extensive functional testing predominant.
The five most significant reasons for Microservices testing are

1. Ensuring reliability and functionality
2. Detecting integration issues
3. Ensuring performance and scalability
4. Improving efficiency and speed
5. Supporting continuous delivery and deployment

Repercussion

What happens when you don’t do Microservices Testing?

When considering A Large Number Of Interchanging Components, Microservices Design Has Numerous Points Of Failure.

The impact of No or Unplanned Microservices testing usually results in the following.

  • Errors and exceptions in the code.
  • Ineffective deployments.
  • The data center failure.
  • Unavailability of unit tests.
  • Interdependent Services
  • A new version of the code is available.
  • Hardware malfunction.
  • Poor Architecture.
  • Communicating across unstable networks.
  • Strategy deployment errors

A little or insufficient testing of microservices can also adversely impact

1. Reliability
2. Stability
3. Performance
4. User experience of the system
as Microservice architecture has numerous points of failures

TF’s Approach Testing Microservices Architecture:

Testing a microservices architecture differs from testing typical monolithic systems. TF has a unique way of testing microservices where we plan our test strategy which addresses some important factors while testing a microservices design.

  1. Test each service in isolation – Each service is tested in isolation to ensure that it is functioning correctly and meets the requirements of the business and end users
  2. Test the integration of services – Test the integration between services ensuring that they are communicating correctly and that the overall system is functioning as expected
  3. Use automated testing – Early defect and issue detection through automated testing can result in a quicker time to market and better financial outcomes.
  4. Focus on API testing – API testing is a critical component of testing a microservices architecture. API testing focuses on functional and non-functional requirements
  5. Implement end-to-end testing – End-to-end testing is essential to ensure that the user interface, APIs, and backend services are functioning correctly and meeting the business and end-user requirements.
  6. Implement performance scalability testing – It is critical to implement performance and scalability testing to ensure that the system can handle increased load and traffic.
  7. Use combination testing techniques – Unit testing, integration testing, API testing, end-to-end testing, performance testing, and security testing should all be used in combination to guarantee thorough testing.
5 Important things performed in microservices testing
  • In a microservices design, each service is tested as a black box. As a result, all are equally subject to the same stringent test.
  • The fundamental links in the Microservice architecture are identified and tested.
  • Not just testing the happy path scenarios; as microservices can fail, it’s critical to simulate failure scenarios to build resilience in your system.
  • Starting in development and proceeding through broader testing scopes, testing across phases deploying a diverse mix of testing approaches, and increasing the likelihood of issues that may surface.
  • On a new code, we employ the “canary testing” technique to test on real users and ensure that all of the code is well-instrumented.
The Thoughframeworkers and their Experience in Microservices Testing
Thought Frameworks has a tradition of delivering trustworthy software on a regular, consistent basis par excellence. In a world where technology and business are constantly evolving, we are adept at orienting ourselves by introducing new methodologies in our core competence of all QA processes.
Adding value to all microservices testing requirements:
  • By increasing the number of development cycles
  • Achieving resilience and ease of execution
  • Greater product scalability
  • All feature delivery executed on time

About Thought Frameworks

Thought Frameworks is a U.S.-based leading QA and software testing organization that’s been in business since 2009, armed with the ultimate solutions for all your software’s QA testing challenges. Having headquarters both in California, USA and a fully functional well equipped QA Test Lab in Bengaluru-India, that delivers premium QA and QC services endlessly across different Industry domains and niches. An ISTQB Silver Partnered Company, our superhuman test team heroes have delivered numerous successful QA and QC projects for clients across the globe. Get powered by our deep dive bug-hunting process that helps your software in clocking release cycles on time while delivering excelling quality and functionality.
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