Testing Web Services Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Testing Web Services - Essay ExampleOver the half decade, sack go have become widely used in the deployment of weather vane-establish applications as they provide the advantage of compatibility with various software program platforms. However, due to the platform-independent nature of a client-server network architecture, testing web operate can prove to be more difficult and requires approaches that are different from those employed in traditional software testing.World encompassing Web (WWW) divine services typically involve three components a web server, a web page, and a web browser. These components work together in delivering information to the end-user. Web pages are written using Hypertext Markup nomenclature (HTML) for delivering formatted static content. Dynamic web pages can be constructed with the use of additional scripting using programming languages much(prenominal) as PHP, ASP, C, or Java. These scripts are typically located in the web server. The last compone nt, the web browser, displays text and multimedia content of web pages to the end-user. Currently, there are a number of web browsers purchasable in the market, the most popular of which are Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome. The main purpose of creating web-based applications is to facilitate selective information transfer to the server and between servers.Web services work with various internet protocols and web standards. ... Online services rely on such standards to properly exchange messages with each new(prenominal). Some protocols may also be derivates of web standards. For instance, Web Services Description Language (WSDL), and Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) are both based on the XML standard. For a better understanding of the standards, protocols, and techniques used in the growing of web services, these technologies shall be exposit further in the succeeding sections of this paper.The Limitations of Conventional Application TestingSoftware testing does not dwell for the sole purpose of improving the quality of the application. It also guarantees reliability and aids in building the users sureness in the system. Due to the platform-independent structure of client-server applications, the testing methods often used in public software development cannot cover all possible issues that may arise in web service development. The developers of a web service are not capable of predicting the software platform or programming language of other applications utilizing the said service. Likewise, they are cannot determine beforehand the platform being used on the clients side. Testing procedures for ordinary software usually focuses on a particular platform. As a result, these tests will like be unable to keep up with the open platform nature of web services. The need for interaction between web services makes it even more difficult to use conventional testing methods for these applicatio ns. (Huang, J.Z., Qub, Y., H. W. & Xie, J. 2004)For web service testing to be effective, it is not enough for just the service provider or requestor to take rise responsibility. All parties must be integrated into a unified testing framework.