Non-regression testings involve cost, time, and business continuity challenges. They are crucial during software change phases, which are often critical. A non-regression testing tool optimizes data flow management and reduces the time required for these tests.
Non-Regression Testing : A Way to Secure Change in Data Exchanges
As a CIO or architect, you are familiar with the principle of change: controlling and managing the transition from the current state to the target state. Non-regression tests serve as the key measure and control mechanism in this process.
The non-regression testing methodology involves establishing a reference point before the change and comparing it to the state after implementation. Once this comparison is validated, the change can be applied. Unfortunately, this comparison is the only way to guarantee the expected quality of the outcome.
In practice, this methodology is particularly challenging to apply when testing data flows. It essentially involves a Cartesian product of:
- Functional variations of source messages,
- Final states (success, error, etc.),
- Transported content, including formats (JSON, XML, CSV, etc.) and protocols (Files, APIs, Web Services, Messages, etc.).
These tasks are highly resource-intensive and require significant support from functional teams. To simplify and accelerate non-regression testing, we have developed the Enterprise Flows Repository (EFR) supervision console.
What are we looking to optimize?
To fully understand the context, it is important to recall the different types of changes encountered:
- Bug Fix. Fixing a bug in a data exchange is a straightforward case. In practice, the developer takes a test set to validate the fix. At least, it takes between 1 to 4 hours.
- Feature Evolution. This type of change introduces a behavioral difference. In addition to the bug fix, a precise description of the new expected outcome is required. Development efforts are more significant, ranging from 2 to 5 days.
- Application Migration. Changing an application with a version upgrade is a complex case. Changing the application version requires revalidating all inbound and outbound exchanges. A dedicated project must be established to manage this process effectively.
- Middleware Upgrade. Updating ETL, ESB, or API Management tools requires revalidating all exchanges for every application it orchestrates. Such a change in the data exchange transport layer itself is the most complex scenario. The human effort required for such a change is enormous.
In practice, these changes involve multiple project teams, with workloads directly proportional to the impact on source and target applications.
In short, two groups of specialists are essential : Flow Developers and Technical Experts for the functional tests. By structuring and automating these activities, the efficiency gains are significant compared to traditional, unstructured, and manual processes.
Our Approach is to minimize the manual workload for these teams, maximizing productivity and operational efficiency.
The EFR console makes the supervision of data exchanges easier
As a reminder, our console EFR covers the entire scope of exchange supervision by:
- Monitoring the execution of an exchange,
- Identifying sources and expected targets,
- Indicating the exchange status,
- Capturing exchange content,
- Replaying exchanges.
It enables you to maintain full control over your results, not only in the production environment but also in previous environments such as testing or pre-production.
All these supervision elements form the foundation for analysis during non-regression testings. They serve as the basis for comparison: baseline result vs. post-test result.
A Non-regression Testing module that extends supervision
With the non-regression testing module, you extend your supervision capabilities with two essential dimensions:
- Reference test datasets,
- Obtained results.
Your test datasets can either be extracted from production or derived from new scenarios under development. You can observe and select the relevant test datasets.
The following diagram illustrates the proposed approach: supervise, test, then compare.
With the EFR tool, supervision is used for testing. The 2 activities are integrated to increase efficiency.
EFR: a new approach to testing your data flows
Ultimately, with this non-regression testing module, EFR provides a comprehensive testing framework for both your development and functional teams.
You optimize the workload of business teams by reducing their manual efforts. Their operational productivity is enhanced, as they no longer need to manually reproduce non-regression tests during execution.
We have organized a webinar on this topic. In this 15-minute video, discover how our flow management tool optimizes your testing phases.
EFR: An Integrated Console to Boost Your Teams’ Operational Productivity
The operational results observed by our clients include:
- 50% reduction in Integration Testing time,
- 80% reduction in workload for business teams,
- Increased deployment speed for data flows.
