Automating Micro-Service Testing

Abstract

There is currently a major trend in the direction of micro-service architectures. Micro-Services are small components – less than 1.5K statements – with a message-oriented interface that can be independently compiled and executed. The language they are developed in does not matter. They are isolated from the outer world by their interface. What matters is that they can be developed and tested within two person weeks. Their test should take no longer than five days. With a median test productivity of 40 test cases per day that means the service should require no more than 160 test cases, leaving some time for debugging and test repetition. From this point of view the size of micro-services is restricted by the effort required to test them. To keep this effort as small as possible the service test should be automated. Automation not only reduces the test effort but also enables the test to be repeated and the results compared. If micro-services are to achieve that what is expected from them, their testing must be automated. WebsTest is a tool which was designed to do just that. It not only generates requests and validates responses, but also evaluates the overall service quality. The tool has been under development for over three years and has been applied in two commercial projects.