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Wash Away Those Web Service Testing Blues with Parasoft's SOAPtest: Page 4 of 5

But be careful using this feature in conjunction with automated parameter generation. Because the parameters are changed from run to run in this mode, subsequent tests will fail. This is only true with automated generation--if you enter the data manually from the test cases you wrote, this shouldn't be an issue. Once a regression control has been created, it can be updated or the test can be removed.

Load-testing functions appear simplistic but have some interesting facets. Distributed agents as well as your local machine can provide virtual users with which to stress a Web service. To set up a scenario (a scenario defines how many users to emulate and when), you can use a click-and-drag method to determine how many virtual users will be active and when they will be active.

After defining a scenario with a duration of two minutes, I added a "point in time" at one minute into the scenario and then grabbed the point and dragged it from one virtual user to five virtual users. This is a quick way to ramp up the load on the server. The default schedule is set to start all users at the same time and run the entire test under the same load.

Vendor Information
SOAPtest, starts at $5,000. Parasoft Corp., (888) 305-0041, (626)305-9090; fax (626) 305-9048. www.parasoft.com

Profiles can be defined, each representing a different test, and multiple profiles can be integrated into a single test. You also can specify what percentage of each profile should be run during each scenario to generate a more realistic user load.

Repeat