SOAPtest is a comprehensive testing tool geared to testing Web services. It provides unit, system, and load testing features and support for WSDL, WS-Security, and JMS, including asynchronous messaging. It also supports attachments, access to performance monitors, comparative reporting, and more.

Unit Testing
The goal of unit testing is to exercise each method individually to make sure it is working correctly. SOAPtest leverages WSDL to create a test suite for a Web service. Simply enter the URL to the WSDL resource and SOAPtest does the rest. It creates a new test project with one test suite containing a unit test case per method described in the WSDL.

In addition to the unit test cases, SOAPtest offers you the option to create test cases to validate the WSDL itself. With this, you can check for correctness by verifying that the WSDL conforms to the XML Schema Definition via XML validation, check the validity of URL references it contains, and make sure it conforms to the WS-Interoperability Basic Profile 1.0. In addition, you can take a snapshot of the WSDL and compare it in future test runs to make sure it has not changed. By default, it compares all elements. But if you want, you can choose to ignore certain elements.

Each test case will contain an automatically generated value of the correct type for each input argument described. If that isn't appropriate, you may specify your own either as fixed or parameterized values (see Figure 1). Parameterized values come from one of several forms of data stores. The data store may be one of six types of data sources supported (simple text files, CSV files, databases, Excel spreadsheets, internal tables, aggregate), a built-in tool called an XML Data Bank, or a custom method that you write.

By default, SOAPtest adds an output tool to each test case so you can see the HTTP request and response. There are also a variety of output tools that you can add to a test, in one or more tool chains to produce the output that is most meaningful to you.

Tools
SOAPtest comes with many tools that can process the test case request or response. A test case may have multiple tools applied and tools can be chained to further refine the output. They include tools that check, compare, transform, and extract data from XML documents; write files; handle MIME attachments; and are custom methods written in Java, JavaScript, or Python. Refer to the user guide on the Parasoft Web site for complete details.

Regression Testing
Initially, the test is considered a pass or fail based on the presence of SOAP fault elements in the response. You can change this to have SOAPtest compare the response to one previously captured.

Once the service is responding as expected, you can easily create regression tests using the Create Regression Control feature. With this you can have SOAPtest record the correct responses from the service it is testing. This is particularly helpful for negative tests, where a SOAP fault is the correct response. Once created, the test passes or fails based on a comparison with the recorded response.

System Testing
System testing is a higher-level functional test that exercises a set of features, in a particular sequence, to achieve the desired outcome. They are usually based on use case scenarios. A system test case is best defined as its own test suite that contains the sequence of interactions required as part of the user scenario. This will let you reuse your system test cases as part of load test user profiles.

System tests typically need to pass the output of one interaction as an input to a subsequent interaction. SOAPtest supports this requirement a couple of ways, most notably with the XML Data Bank tool. This tool lets you identify, via XPath expressions, what elements and/or attributes will be available as input to subsequent tests.

Load Testing
Load testing verifies that your system can scale to meet its expected volume demands. Load tests can be pinpoint, targeting individual service methods or, more likely, based on user interaction scenarios. Either way, SOAPtest makes it easy to create load tests.

You can run the load test from the local machine or you can choose to spread the virtual user load around to other machines that have SOAPtest installed.

User profiles let you tailor the load to realistic scenarios using one or more test suites. User "think time" can be modeled at the profile, test case, or test suite level.

Load scenarios define the load to produce over the duration of the test. It is specified by a graph of load (in terms of users or hit rate) versus time. You can create any kind of load you want within the constraints of your license and available resources. SOAPtest includes four general curves to start you off. Once created, you can fully customize the load curve by adding or removing points along the curve and move those points around.

You can monitor the performance of the service hosts during the load test using the Monitors feature. This feature lets you capture performance metrics from a Windows or SNMP-enabled host as part of the load test report base. This lets you correlate load with resource usage on the service host(s).

You can capture and report on the results of the load testing both while the test is executing and after (see Figure 2). SOAPtest lets you save the results to a report file separate from the test project. The report information includes the parameters of the load test such as the load scenario, test project/suite, and user profiles.

Other Features
SOAPtest can execute test suites and scripts from the command line, letting you integrate the tests as part of your nightly build process. It can act as a proxy between Web service clients and service hosts. This can provide consistent, centrally managed security across many services. The proxy can check for certain patterns in a request and return SOAP fault if requirements are not met. The proxy can also act as a translator if different hosts implement the same service but require a different message structure.

SOAPtest can also create service implementation stubs from a WSDL and expose the implementation as a Web service using a built-in version of Tomcat. This lets you test Web service clients without requiring access to a real implementation of the service.

Security Support
SOAPtest supports client authentication using certificates or HTTP Basic Authentication. If the Web service requires access over HTTPS, you simply register the server's SSL certificate with SOAPtest. SOAPtest includes features to support WS-Security including configurable SOAP headers, X509, SAML, and username tokens, and support for XML Digital Signature and Encryption.

Company Info
Parasoft Corporation
101 E. Huntington Ave.
Monrovia, CA 91016
Phone: (888) 305-0041
E-mail: info@parasoft.com
URL: www.parasoft.com

Platforms/Requirements
2000/XP, Linux, Solaris
At least 256MB RAM (per processor); 512MB recommended, JRE 1.4.1

Price
Starts at $3,995

Conclusion
SOAPtest 2.5 makes testing Web services a simple and productive activity. It helps hide the complexities of the Web service standards and technology and lets the tester focus on the task at hand: making sure the service meets all of the functional and technical requirements in scope. If you are serious about what you develop, then automated testing should be important to you. If you develop Web services, then you should check out this tool.