20 – How do you get along with your neighbors? System Integration Testing

Welcome and greetings
Recap of last episode

  • In the last episode we discussed what Component Integration Testing is and how it is used….along with a funny analogy using Jack and Jill and some water.

Summary of this episode

  • In this episode I provide an overview of System Integration Testing (SIT) and how it differs from other forms of testing. I provide examples of what it means and how you should think about approaching it.

What’s in it for you?

  • At the end of this episode, you will be able to discuss what SIT is and how it differs from other forms of testing by using real world examples.

Episode Content

  • AKA – SIT, System Testing, End-to-end testing
  • It is the process of testing a system’s components and how they interact.
    • Unlike CIT, where all the tests are performed functionally as it relates to 2 different software components in the same application, SIT is performed on 2 or more applications in the same System (hence the handy moniker of SIT).
  • It allows you to verify how the different modules or applications interact with each other and any problems with interfaces between them.
  • For example – you have a website – it has distinct and different applications for the following items: search, item class, inventory data, shopping cart, checkout, shipping, billing, order authorization (credit card auth), and the list goes on.
  • SIT is designed to enhance lower level testing from Unit Testing, Component Testing, Component Integration Testing, etc.
  • It lets you find system level defects before the application is deployed to production
  • It is performed against a production like system. usually a percentage size of production.
    • In the past, hardware and processing power were not cheap. Scaled down version of the application was considered a good compromise to allow full end to end testing of the entire system.
    • This still caused issues because you could not test every scenario for a variety of reasons….but you could get close.
      • Different hardware specs
      • limit on the amount of traffic that you could pump through the system
      • limit on data available for testing
    • Today this is not as much of a problem if you have a full cloud model for your software environments or a hybrid cloud model with on-premisis and cloud environments. Both of these solutions help control some of the costs related to SIT.
  • In the past, most of the SIT was performed manually by hundreds of testers at large organizations. Today, devops and automation help run the tests faster in an on-demand fashion…look for these topics in the future.

Recap of this episode

  • In this episode, I described what SIT is and how it has been designed and run in the past. I also talked briefly about how automation is helping test faster now and in the future.

Next Episode: OMG – Your Application has Stage Fright – Performance Testing
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