Which Tools Should Be Used For Integration Tests

Today every business wants high-quality software that attracts new customers and satisfies the existing customer. To achieve these businesses conduct a variety of tests on software such as unit tests, integration tests, system tests, usability tests, regression tests, etc. Among these software testing types, integration testing is one of the most important testing methods that are essential for working software. Let us now try to understand this testing type and tools used to perform this test in more detail.

What is integration testing?

It is a software testing method where individual units/modules of the software are combined and tested to ensure that these integrated units work fine together after combining. The primary focus of this test is to validate data communication among these modules. Individual modules are combined to form one unit and then an integration test is executed to verify the performance, functionality, and reliability of the software.

Why is integration testing needed?

This test is required because, without properly integrated software modules, the software will not work fine. This test helps teams to ensure the proper interaction among software modules. Though the software modules are unit tested first however there is always a possibility of some errors showing up in the modules at a later stage or sometimes some bugs are left unidentified and might show up later, therefore this testing is required.

What benefits do businesses get with integration testing?

Below mentioned are some of the benefits that business gets with integration test:

·        This test helps businesses to deliver high-quality software with properly integrated modules that work as expected

·        Usually, the software is developed by multiple developers in large organizations. This test helps to ensure that the logic implemented by all developers is as per the prescribed standards

·        This test validates the interaction of the application with third party tools or APIs which is very essential for businesses to let third-party providers access their services

·        In case of frequent requirement changes, many a time developers deploy the changes without unit testing them. In such cases, integration testing is required

·        This test helps businesses to detect and fix bugs that were left unidentified during the previous testing process, which ultimately saves overall cost and time for businesses

Which tools should be used for integration tests?

Below mentioned are some tools that businesses can use for integration testing:

1.      Protractor – It is an open-source framework and is preferred for end-to-end integration testing of angular and angular JS apps. It uses specific drivers and a native browser to validate the application interaction. This tool helps to run instances of the application and helps to write end-to-end test suites. Tests can be run from the user point of view

2.      Rational integration tester - This tool helps to provide a scripting-free environment and helps to avoid the bugs related to integration testing within the iterative agile development process. It provides many features such as the creation of code-free and reusable stubs and also reduces the risks of any failure. It helps to create virtual services and removes test dependencies and enables early testing. It provides virtualized test surrounding and supports various steps of test development

3.      TESSY: This tool is used for integration testing of embedded software. This tool helps in identifying accurate code coverage. This tool generates test reports for the results of test execution which saves the tester’s time which usually gets consumed if reports have to create manually. This tool supports C and C++ programming languages. It provides code coverage even without additional effort. This tool has Workspace, Test Data Editor (TDE), and Test Interface Editor (TIE) as three major functions. It helps in analyzing the interface and determines the variable that is used in the function

Conclusion: There are many approaches to integration testing such as the top-down approach, bottom-up approach, sandwich approach, etc. Testers usually prefer to do automation testing to check the integration of software modules. For this testers can choose among the variety of tools. Some of the tools are mentioned in this article, that tester can consider. It should be noted that the selection of tools completely depends on business needs, project requirements, and stakeholder’s decisions. Leverage integration testing from a next-gen QA and software testing services provider to achieve high-quality software.