Microservices Testing – The rise of it!

Architecture has always been a fascinating aspect of building things as it can derive various factors like – reliability, strength, usability, how things can be modeled and so much more for an end product.

Similarly, when we talk about Software applications, a lot goes behind analyzing, thinking, and deciding what sort of architecture we would want to base our application or our product on. There are various types of application architectures styled on the basis of relationships between services to choose from like –

• Monoliths – These are the traditional models for designing software programs wherein the services and components are tightly coupled and account for a single unit and all the components must be present to execute the code written.
• N- Tier Architecture – This as the name suggests is a multi-tier architecture style where presentation, application processing, and data management functions are physically separated into 3-tiers contrary to a coupled architecture.
• Event-Driven Architecture – An Event Driven architecture needs events to trigger an action and the services communicate with each other then. It is a concept used in modern architecture where the services being used are decoupled.
• Service-Oriented Architecture – This, by far is the most commonly used software application architecture style widely used across service-oriented organizations. Services are provided to other components by implementing application components and services here are loosely coupled.
• Microservices – Microservices are the style of application architecture where the application is arranged as a collection of loosely coupled services. The application itself is developed as a collection of services enabling the rapid and reliable delivery of larger and more complex applications.

WHAT ARE MICROSERVICES?

Microservices are becoming increasingly popular with the day as a favorable architecture style to build the applications on, primarily because it sort of serves as a collection of services with each service acting individually and communicating with mechanisms like – HTTP and API’s. The development style is such that the application is built using a number of small, independent services developed and used together as a framework for a domain.

These services used are called microservices because they are really small independent units which are managed by very small teams.  Each service developed and integrated has its lifecycle and is managed separately by concerned stakeholders.

TESTING MICROSERVICES

Now that we are well-versed with the concept of microservices, it is easier to understand that the services that are incorporated with Microservice architecture are independent and do not rely too much on the process components used in the application, rather they communicate over well-defined API’s. The outstanding fact is that these microservices can be encapsulated using the Docker containers and can then be deployed.

EXAMPLES OF MICROSERVICES

There are several tech giants that use microservices as a building format for their applications like:

• Amazon
• Netflix
• Uber
• Etsy

TYPES OF TESTING DONE FOR MICROSERVICES

Each service in this architecture format is treated as an individual software module and the testing and deployment are done using Automation with little or no manual test inclusion.

• Unit Testing – Whatever testing approach or platform or architecture or service is implemented, Unit Testing comes at the top of being implemented in terms of verifying the quality of the application being built or the service. These tests are very technical and done by Developers.
• Component Testing – Microservices Architecture is made up of services as well as components so it is essential that these components be tested. It is performed after Unit Testing phase and each component is testing separately before integrating them with other components.
• Integration Testing – Integration Testing is performed after all the components have been tested individually and integrated. Each microservices is considered as an individual component here.
• System Testing – System Testing is where the entire sphere of integrated microservices can be tested together.
• Security Testing – Considering that all the services used in microservices-based architecture work independently, it is all the more important that they are tested against the security vulnerabilities and all the checkpoints where these services are interacting with other platforms are thoroughly tested.
• Performance Testing – The performance of active microservices is tested by validating if their performance is meeting the desired service level agreed upon.
• Load Testing – It is performed by checking the services behavior and their API interaction etc. on several tools.

POPULAR TOOLS USED FOR MICROSERVICES TESTING

• Hoverfly – It simulates API Latency and Failures.
• Vagrant – It helps build and maintain portable virtual software development environments.
• VCR – Used for unit testing the microservices.
• Pact – Used for frameworks consumer-driven contracts testing.
• Apiary – It is an API Documentation tool.
• API Blueprint – Used to design and prototype API’s.
• Gatling – Load testing tool that enables to run simulations on multiple platforms.
• Jaeger – It is an end-to-end distributed tracing tool.

CONCLUSION

Microservices are rapidly growing architecture format being used due to their ability to act individually as processes with separate lifecycles and are not dependent upon other services for their performance. They have the astounding capability to interact with API’s and they can be encapsulated and stored in different containers without requiring interaction with other components. It is the platform independence at its best.