How Do Smart Organizations Conduct API Testing?
Today, technology advancement has provided customers with many options to choose from when looking for a service. This means that software developers are left with no option but to make sure that their applications perform well and interact with each other (including third-party applications) seamlessly. Without this, they risk losing customers to their competitors, something that is likely going to affect their businesses negatively.
To meet these demands, companies have been forced to embrace APIs and DevOps when building their applications. APIs (Applications Programming Interfaces) are the connecting blocks that allow applications to communicate and share information. Developers are able to build an application while implementing the functionalities of an API. This has not only made development easier but also faster.
The use of APIs has grown exponentially over the last few years. Every business has a number of APIs running their systems, if not hundreds of them. This has left businesses exposed to a new kind of threat that comes with the use of APIs. They need to be careful and do whatever they can to eliminate API threats. This is where API testing comes in.
What is API Testing?
API testing is the process of testing applications’ programming interfaces to make sure that they meet all their requirements when it comes to reliability, security, performance, and functionality. Testing APIs is conducted at the message layer because they do not have a graphical user interface.
Organizations test APIs to make sure that the APIs and their interactions work well without any issues. They also seek to eliminate any vulnerabilities that might give attackers a way of gaining access to sensitive data and information within the organization.
There are different types of API testing. The most common ones include functional testing, load testing, validation testing, security testing, unit testing, and run-time error testing. When conducting testing, organizations can choose from a variety of API testing tools that come with different features to automate the process and eliminate any margins of error. Smart organizations have gone further and implemented smart ways when testing their APIs. To ensure effective testing, they;
Include Debugging When Writing API Tests
Smart organizations understand that there are many reasons that could lead to the failure of API tests. Some of them might include things such as version discrepancies, failures in the development environments, and flaws in functionality. To counter this, they make sure that they have included debugging when writing their tests.
Understand What to Test
Smart organizations build APIs and test them to make sure that they meet their expectations. When testing their APIs, they understand what to test, and where their priority should lie. They also understand the things that they should not test. For instance, they do not prioritize testing functionality from third-party APIs or applications.
Write Flexible Tests
When conducting API tests, organizations design their tests in a way that is possible for them to be run in different configurations. This forces them to write flexible tests that can easily respond to changes in product development. This way, they are able to address every demand of their APIs during the testing stage.
Include Stress Testing to API Tests
Sometimes, organizations need to test for problems they do not foresee or invalid parameters. This requires them to add stress when testing their APIs. This way, they are able to evaluate how their APIs perform under different levels of stress and optimize them to fail gracefully when the load exceeds.
Automate The Testing Process
Smart organizations understand that manual testing of APIs is complicated and has high chances of errors. A tester might forget something important that could contribute to the failure of their APIs. Fortunately, there are different API testing tools that give them a chance to automate the testing process. These tools have different features to test the APIs and give output depending on how the APIs respond. In case of any issues, they can see where the issue is and rectify it.
API testing is very important when it comes to the success of APIs especially due to the impact of technology in organizations. Smart organizations understand that if a single API fails, chances are that it is going to affect their entire business operations. It is, therefore, important for them to employ the right strategies and tools when testing their APIs.
