Service-oriented architecture (SOA) testing
A SOA consists of business processes that are implemented
by linking individual services. The linking can be done programmatically
or with tools based on Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)
or Business Process Management (BPM). SOA testing can be challenging
because there is no GUI; the focus is on testing interfaces and services.
IBM® Rational® Integration Tester is based on the Service Component Architecture (SCA), which provides a programming model for building applications and systems based on an SOA. For more information about SCA, see Service Component Architecture (SCA)
Based on this concept, the three main components that are used in Rational Integration Tester’s SOA design are:
- Operations are transactions that represent single, logical units of work. The execution of an operation typically causes one or more persistent data records to be read, written, or modified. An Operation has a structured interface for invocation and response.
- Services are granular, self-contained groupings of business operations. The focus on services is different from traditional GUI applications as a service is neither a complete application nor a single subsystem. Instead, a service is designed to maximize reuse and must be stateless. Additionally, a service will be able to accommodate multiple invocation patterns (for example, SOAP over HTTP for synchronous implementations or SOAP over JMS for asynchronous implementations).
- A Business Process is long-running set of actions or activities that are performed with specific business goals in mind. Business processes typically encompass multiple service invocations.