Strategies To Automate Your Integration Testing

What happens when the unit test of software components works perfectly? Have you ever wondered why the 100% pass report for unit tests does no good to components when integrated and verified as one unit? Integration tests undergoing spontaneous failure do not reflect that the failure point lies within the units but somewhere where the units interact.

What Is Integration Testing?

Integration testing consists of testing around the interfaces to check the data flow between several modules of software without disturbing the functionalities of the modules.

To build a “working” version of the system, the separate working modules developed and unit tested successfully by individual developers are brought together in an incremental manner for the system to function.

The software is then verified to uncover any errors associated with interfaces so that it meets the requirements, standards, and compliances, if any, and overall functions in the way it is expected.

Again, integration can be among several systems, such as:

• New system to legacy system
• Legacy system to legacy system
• Systems developed and supported by different service providers.
• Integrating components such as DB, API, and Cloud

Let’s discuss elaborately the various components involved and how they interact, taking into account a Payment Gateway System.

Brief System Introduction

The Payment Gateway's client-server architecture is shown in the image.

The software serves as the gateway. It is an essential part of any online retailer. Cards, digital wallets, UPI, and net banking transactions can be authorized with the aid of this software as a service.

These services offer one-click navigation and necessitate few adjustments to websites. It is difficult to integrate a third-party payment service with a merchant system.

Additionally, this system needs to be tested against integration points that give solutions for things like authorization, settlement, refunds, user notifications, and transaction statements.

Additionally, it is crucial that end users may access the system through a variety of platforms, including desktop, mobile, and web-based systems. The test cases listed below are some of the most important ones to run when testing the service, including.

• Ensure that the transactions are thorough and secure.
• Verify the functionality for all accepted payment methods.
• A consistent user experience across all platforms used by end users.

From an integration perspective, It is more crucial to verify the website's and the service's integration.

Components of Integration Testing

Considering this, let's talk about the components to keep in mind when attempting to automate integration.

• Reverse engineering can be used to predict issues that will occur when conducting your integration suites when choosing the components.
• If you have any analysis experience, the failures for integration testing will come from environmental failures.
• Components like the API or UI fail instead of the entire automated scripted scenario.
• Establishing the proper branch from development in the CI/CD pipeline so that the integration tests would run.
• Setting up specific test environmental variables in the pipeline, such as the URL is specific to the execution environment.
• Access to environment-specific test resources.

The components detailed here are summarized in the figure up top. 

Test Scripts

The test script needs to be prepared and thoroughly examined for the automated integration scenario it will likely be validating. It ought to be equipped with assertions that would flag the failure of a certain part. 

Setup of a Pipeline

It is essential for automated, integrated suites to run via CI/CD pipeline for testing and development to cooperate. Additionally, when your system is compatible with various platforms, simultaneous automated, integrated tests can speed up test cycles while still ensuring complete coverage. 

Triggers for Scheduled Tests

The configuration of the CI/CD pipelines should be such that they first assess the environment of the development branch pushing the changes before starting the corresponding test environment. team working in multiple time zones must rely on executing via pipelines for tests that take longer than usual. 

Test Results Report

The report depicting the pass/fail rate to alert the team for any issue seen helps identify the failure endpoints and assess the cause of the problem, whether it’s a poorly managed interface, unreliable infrastructure, or a shoddy implementation. 

Overview of Scenarios Confirming All Interfaces Upon Integration

Given the importance of the system under consideration, the Payment Gateway, each transaction state should properly flow to each system endpoint. 

Let’s discuss one such scenario, which is about the online payment failure from the consumer’s side, in this case, being an unauthorized transaction. 

Payment Gateway Use Case

“You place an order at the online store as a customer. Credit Card payments are accepted by the payment service. The payment gateway encrypts the card information before sending it to the card network for fraud checks or card validity checks. The card's issuer gives their approval for the transaction. The company communicates its approval to the payment gateway, which communicates it to the customer. To authenticate card transactions, the issuer bank sends a one-time password to the customer's registered cellphone or email. 

There is a time limit on these OTP, which are a component of two-factor authentication. The transaction fails if the OTP is entered incorrectly.”

It is anticipated that any orders placed by customers on the merchant's website will be unsuccessful, and no money should be deposited into the merchant's account. 

The integration of the merchant's side to these payment processors to collect and disperse payments can have various permutations and combinations as more third-party payment processors enter the market. 

When we break down the interactions in our scenario, the initial one is between the customer and the merchant who is providing software or service via a website or mobile application. 

The customer and the application should be able to communicate, and the application should validate the products and the price put into the cart for payment.

User-submitted card information, together with 2-factor authentication for purchases made via Point of Sale, should be encrypted during interactions between the merchant site and the Payment Gateway and then with the card networks.

Interaction between the Card Network and the Issuing Bank for the purpose of timely delivery of the OTP to the appropriate customer with time validation in place 

Interaction between the Card Network and the Third-Party Notification Service for the purpose of timely delivery of the OTP to the respective customer 

The customer's interaction with a payment service is not validated in this instance since the user entered an invalid OTP, and the payment processor, card network, and issuing bank all communicated that the transaction was not authorized. 

Interaction of the Notification Service to Card Network to Customer providing the error notice that "OTP entered is wrong."

Payment gateway communication between the card network, acquirer, and merchant account. If a payment is unsuccessful, no money should be sent to the acquirer or the merchant's account.

Finally, the customer's interaction with the merchant's application resulted in no successful placing of orders due to a failed transaction. 

As you saw, there are several interfaces present where various players and systems, primarily the payment processing system, are interacting. 

All these modules may not be coded and subjected to unit tests or made available for integration testing. 

The beauty of integration tests is in testing that modules and interfaces in unity work in this way. 

And it is in situations like these that automated integrated testing can be quite useful when a system has a lot of back-and-forth communication across components. 

Tools for Automated Integration Testing

It's crucial to comprehend the selection criteria before listing the instruments available for automation. 

We want to perform automated integration tests. 

Therefore, a platform for testing various system components like DB, API, and UI is provided by the tool that can be used to test the interface between modules. Tools with a long lifespan, ease of maintenance, and support for continuous integration runs that maximize return on investment should be chosen. 

There are various tools available, which we would discuss below: 

1. Citrus: An automated integration test to run tests over any messaging protocol and format data. It offers a platform for automating Soap Services, HTTP Rest, and integration with different testing frameworks like TestNG and Junit. It comes with comprehensive documentation, and automated scripts may be created in either Java or XML.
2. SITA(Smart Integration Test Accelerator); Running business-focused integration tests is made possible by this tool. Integrates with tools like HP, IBM Rational, and IBM seamlessly. 
3. TESSY: This tool is mainly used in unit testing of safety-critical embedded systems. It handles all aspects of test organization and management, such as requirements, coverage evaluation, and traceability. 
4. Testsigma: This platform for test automation is completely managed. It offers automated continuous testing for web applications, messaging protocols, and mobile applications and is available as open-source.

What Are the Benefits of Automated Integration Testing? 

Do we really need the integration testing to be automated in the first place? 

The answer is undoubtedly "yes." Companies schedule the release of products in the current macroeconomic environment, where there is intense competition in the market for releasing products that have a friendly UI/UX, offering smooth functionality, and having an optimal performance across the platform on which they may be utilized. 

The testing team frequently bears the brunt of the development work's delay. 

Will you skimp on the quality? Never!! 

Given this dual difficulty, the testing team must turn to creative fixes to shorten test execution cycles. 

It's a framework changeover for integrated tests from manual to automation. The adoption of agility in modern organizations allows for the use of automation technology for quality control inspections and cost reductions. 

A primary bottleneck for verifying the system is the execution of tests that are repetitive and occur frequently. Automated integrated tests eliminate this bottleneck. 

Automation is essential because testing is one of the time-consuming components, and every release cycle is getting shorter. 

An alternative platform to automation tools is required to automate testing across many technologies.

Outline

An integral part of a layered approach to quality is integration testing. For testers, automating various software components as opposed to the units might be quite difficult. 

In the paragraphs above, we attempted to explain the significance of automated integration tests using the illustration of a complicated system with numerous interaction points. 

A key finding for high-quality integration tests is to stick to the order of events, which will cover the system's interaction module by module. 

Identify the various modules and actors involved as a prerequisite for integration tests, develop a test strategy, choose high-priority scenarios, prepare test data and an environment, develop automated tests, and integrate the suite using CI pipelines to run tests as soon as released in lower environments. 

Early in the software development cycle, automated integration tests must find interface issues. It boosts the team's confidence in their ability to deliver high-quality products to users. 

To perform complicated scenarios quickly, a tool that meets your goals offers simple maintenance, and allows for seamless integration should be chosen wisely. 

It is essential to develop a precise strategy for assessing automated testing instruments. 

Consider your project budget, the existing requirement, and the testing team's experience in automation to help you narrow down your decision list and choose the solution that best meets your demands.

Automated Integrated tests enable us to produce excellent solutions that satisfy user needs.