Test automation has evolved in SOA world, in the past years, giving birth to a number of tools practices and standards. But without the right approach to automate, we can't achieve the desired returns, and some of the basic pointers should be kept in mind when planning test automation of SOA applications.
Manual testing cannot be replaced with automation testing: This is the most common mistake people make; a new feature has to be manually tested and when stable it can be automated, Test automation is traditionally for regression testing not a test replacement.
Automation testing in SOA has different levels: Automation testing has different levels like unit level, system level and end-to-end level. Based on the scope and requirements in SOA testing, we first automate the smoke or component test, then the integration test, and finally the end-to-end regression test or orchestration test.
An SOA automation test team needs business and technical architecture...