Microservices Test Automation- Here's What You Need to Know

We have written a couple of times in the past about Microservices. The approaches are evolving, and this blog is an attempt to address a specific question -while testing microservices, does test automation have a role?

Just a little refresher first. As the name suggests, microservices are nothing but a combination of multiple small services that make up a whole. It is a unique method of developing software systems that focus on creating single-function modules with well-defined interfaces and operations. An application built as microservices can be broken down into multiple component services. Each of these services can be deployed, modified, and then redeployed individually without compromising the integrity of an application. This enables you to change one or more distinct services (as and when required) instead of having to redeploy the application as a whole.

Microservices are also highly intelligent. They receive requests, process them, and produce a response accordingly. They have smart points that process information and apply logic, and then direct the flow of the information.

Microservices architecture is ideal in the case of evolutionary systems, for eg. where it is not possible to thoroughly anticipate the types of devices that may be accessing the application in the future. Many software products start based on a monolithic architecture but can be gradually revamped to microservices as and when unforeseen requirements surface that interact over an older unified architecture through APIs.

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Why is Testing for Microservices Complicated?

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In the traditional approach to testing, every bit of code needs to be tested individually using unit tests. As parts are consolidated together, they should be tested with integration testing. Once all these tests pass, a release candidate is created. This, in turn, is put through system testing, regression testing, and user-acceptance testing. If all is well, QA will sign-off, and the release will roll out. This might be accelerated while developing in Agile, but the underlying principle would hold.

This approach does not work for testing microservices. This is mainly because apps built on microservices use multiple services. All these services may not be available on staging at the same time or in the same form as they are during production. Secondly, microservices scale up and share the demand. Therefore, testing microservices using traditional approaches can be difficult. In that scenario, an effective way to conduct microservices testing is to leverage test automation.

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Quick Tips on Microservices Test Automation:

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Here are some quick tips that will help you while microservices test automation.

• Manage each service as a software module.
• List the essential links in your architecture and test them
• Do not attempt to gather the entire microservices environment in a small test setup.
• Test across different setups.

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How to Conduct Test Automation for Microservices?

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1. Each Service Should Be Tested Individually:

Test automation can be a powerful mechanism for testing microservices. It is relatively easy to create a simple test script that regularly calls the service and matches a known set of inputs against a proposed output. This function by itself will free up your testing team's time and allow them to concentrate on testing that is more complex.

2. Test the Different Functionalities of your Microservices-based Application: 

Once the vital functional elements of the microservices-based application have been identified, they should be tested much like you would conduct integration testing in the traditional approach. In this case, the benefits of test automation are obvious. You can quickly generate test scripts that are run each time one of the microservices is updated. By analyzing and comparing the outputs of the new code with the previous one, you can establish if anything has changed or has broken.

3.Refrain from Testing in a Small Setup:

Instead of conducted testing in small local environments, consider leveraging cloud-based testing. This allows you to dynamically allocate resources as your tests need them and freeing them up when your tests have completed.

4. Test Across Diverse Setups:

While testing microservices, use multiple environments to test your code. The reason behind this is to expose your code to even slight variations in parameters like underlying hardware, library versions, etc. that might affect it when you deploy to production.

Microservices architecture is a powerful idea that offers several benefits for designing and implementing enterprise applications. This is why it is being adopted by several leading software development organizations. A few examples of inspirational software teams leveraging microservices include Netflix, Amazon, eBay, etc. If like these software teams, your product development is also adopting microservices then testing would undoubtedly be in focus. As we have seen, testing these applications is a complex task and traditional methods will not do the job. To thoroughly test an application built on this model, it may be essential to adopt test automation. Would you agree?