The primary goal of the authors of soapUI is to provide users with a simple and user-friendly utility which can be used to create and run functional as well as non-functional tests through a single test environment. Based on that objective, soapUI has become the world's leading SOA and web service testing tool. soapUI can be installed with no configuration overhead in most of the common operating systems which allow users to start using the tool without spending time on configuring various installation prerequisites.
By using the easy-to-use Java Swing-based GUI, you can start creating functional tests with zero coding. Eventually, the same functional tests can be used for load and performance testing through the same test environment. This gives users a great flexibility since all functional and non-functional tests can be managed through a single point of access.
Let's look at some of the important features of soapUI which we are planning to discuss in the following chapters.
Complete coverage of functional aspects of web services and web applications: soapUI supports most of the standards used in web applications, such as message transmission through HTTP, HTTPS transport as well as JMS. It also supports testing SOAP and RESTful web services. Specifically, soapUI supports most of the web service specifications such as WS-Security, WS-Addressing, among others.
Service mocking: Using soapUI mock services, you can simulate the web services before they are actually implemented. This gives you the ability to test the web service consumer applications without waiting until the web service providers are implemented.
Scripting: Either using Groovy or JavaScript, soapUI allows you to do various pre- or post-processing test configurations such as dynamic mock responses, initialize or cleanup tests, dynamic mock operation dispatching, and so on.
Functional testing : soapUI lets you do functional verifications against web services, web applications, and JDBC data sources. You can validate responses of your tests using various in-built and custom assertions. It also allows you to add conditional test steps to control the test execution flow.
Performance testing: With just a few clicks, you can generate performance and load tests quickly using soapUI.
Test automation: soapUI can be integrated into automated test frameworks such as JUnit, and the tests can also be launched through Apache Maven and Apache Ant build frameworks. It can also be integrated into continuous integration tools such as Hudson or Bamboo.
In addition to the preceding features, the proprietary version of soapUI, soapUI Pro, provides users with data-driven testing capabilities, HTTP recording, and test reporting facilities which are not in scope of this book.