SmartBear Software updated its API tools, ServiceV for API service virtualization and LoadUI NG for API load testing, to accelerate development and testing processes in Agile teams.
Updates to ServiceV enable software teams to rapidly build advanced mocks from real-time API traffic and quickly switch between virtualized “mock” services and actual APIs during diagnostic, load or integration testing in the continuous delivery lifecycle.
“SmartBear's skills in application quality management, and its unique focus on API testing in particular, make it the go-to vendor for such purposes,” says Carl Lehmann of 451 Research in a recent report about API testing. Since the initial release of ServiceV Pro, SmartBear has continued to improve API-related development through strong support for service virtualization based on customer feedback and industry demand.
Developers often use mocks, simple stand-ins for service components, to accelerate the API development cycle. A mock Web service (or virtual API) enables developers to build new functionality and fix bugs faster on parts of a system that otherwise are out of their ability to control, like third party APIs. Not just development, but the processes of testing and user interface design are also sped up by using virtual APIs (“virts”) that can quickly be spun up before the development of the actual API is complete.
New recording features in ServiceV 1.4 allow developers and testers to rapidly build virtual APIs from real-time traffic between an app and one or more APIs. Acting as a high-performance proxy between an app and an actual API, ServiceV Pro virts can now capture real-time traffic as a model and later respond to actions against those endpoints. This feature simplifies the process of synchronizing traditional mocks by hand, typically a time-intensive developer task prone to error especially when a third party service makes changes to their service without prior warning.
Rate-limited APIs are also a particular challenge for testing and development teams in that work is halted when subscription limits are reached, causing teams to miss deadlines in a classic trade-off of time or quality. Because ServiceV 1.4 allows professionals to rapidly craft virtual versions of these APIs and share them amongst their team, third party Web services no longer represent a bottleneck during development and testing, returning the control over making deadlines and minimizing subscription costs.
Control is only as good as how fast a team can exercise it, which is why ServiceV 1.4 also simplifies the process of switching from testing against a virtual API to testing against a real service, either in a QA/staging environment or against production APIs during integration testing. Tests built for one environment can easily be flipped between environments as part of rapid integration testing, saving valuable time during increasingly tight release cycles. Switching comes in particularly useful when running load tests, since third party API involvement can be precisely controlled during a real-time load test, acting as fault isolation.
“Allowing major concurrency bugs or infrastructure bottlenecks to make it to production is a risky and often costly gamble,” said Paul Bruce, API Product Marketing Manager at SmartBear. “Instead, pre-emptive and continuous spot checking through load tests in multiple environments ensures that major performance problems are caught and addressed early on in the software delivery lifecycle. API virtualization compliments all phases of the SDLC, having a powerful impact on reducing time to design, develop, test and diagnose API components in the enterprise.”
ServiceV and LoadUI NG are part of SmartBear’s API Readiness platform, Ready! API, a unified set of testing tools that includes SoapUI NG (functional testing), LoadUI NG (load testing), ServiceV (API service virtualization) and Secure Pro (dynamic API security testing).
The Latest
Over the last 20 years Digital Employee Experience has become a necessity for companies committed to digital transformation and improving IT experiences. In fact, by 2025, more than 50% of IT organizations will use digital employee experience to prioritize and measure digital initiative success ...
While most companies are now deploying cloud-based technologies, the 2024 Secure Cloud Networking Field Report from Aviatrix found that there is a silent struggle to maximize value from those investments. Many of the challenges organizations have faced over the past several years have evolved, but continue today ...
In our latest research, Cisco's The App Attention Index 2023: Beware the Application Generation, 62% of consumers report their expectations for digital experiences are far higher than they were two years ago, and 64% state they are less forgiving of poor digital services than they were just 12 months ago ...
In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 5, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses the network source of truth ...
A vast majority (89%) of organizations have rapidly expanded their technology in the past few years and three quarters (76%) say it's brought with it increased "chaos" that they have to manage, according to Situation Report 2024: Managing Technology Chaos from Software AG ...
In 2024 the number one challenge facing IT teams is a lack of skilled workers, and many are turning to automation as an answer, according to IT Trends: 2024 Industry Report ...
Organizations are continuing to embrace multicloud environments and cloud-native architectures to enable rapid transformation and deliver secure innovation. However, despite the speed, scale, and agility enabled by these modern cloud ecosystems, organizations are struggling to manage the explosion of data they create, according to The state of observability 2024: Overcoming complexity through AI-driven analytics and automation strategies, a report from Dynatrace ...
Organizations recognize the value of observability, but only 10% of them are actually practicing full observability of their applications and infrastructure. This is among the key findings from the recently completed Logz.io 2024 Observability Pulse Survey and Report ...
Businesses must adopt a comprehensive Internet Performance Monitoring (IPM) strategy, says Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT analyst research firm. This strategy is crucial to bridge the significant observability gap within today's complex IT infrastructures. The recommendation is particularly timely, given that 99% of enterprises are expanding their use of the Internet as a primary connectivity conduit while facing challenges due to the inefficiency of multiple, disjointed monitoring tools, according to Modern Enterprises Must Boost Observability with Internet Performance Monitoring, a new report from EMA and Catchpoint ...
Choosing the right approach is critical with cloud monitoring in hybrid environments. Otherwise, you may drive up costs with features you don’t need and risk diminishing the visibility of your on-premises IT ...
