Technological advancements have revolutionized our lives, making life easier and fun. Organizations and companies in all fields and sectors have designed mobile and desktop applications to offer their services digitally, attracting new customers to expand their business ventures. Application Programming Interfaces (API) are key components that integrate the different layers of applications facilitating intra and interoperability of working systems. They act as bridges of communication between the different components of applications to produce the expected outcomes.
API testing is a growing field in the IT sector with new products hitting the markets every day. Companies and organizations employ teams to test their API to release bug-free, smooth and efficient applications. There are various tests and tools employed in API testing evaluating different parameters of applications. API testers are transitioning from manual testing to automation of testing to reduce their huge workloads and optimize API testing processes. Here are a few reasons why API testing is a must to optimize your testing process.
Manage Workloads
API testing is a highly meticulous procedure that requires an in-depth evaluation of various components of the software in order to ensure bug-free efficient performance. Manual API testing is possible with tools such as Postman and SOAPUI but becomes strenuous and exhausting when there are high workloads. API engineers spend upto 40% of their time doing manual testing occupying a big part of their work processes. Automated testing of API will reduce the amount of time spent to 24% of the overall time allowing them to work efficiently towards achieving better API design and functionality.
Automation of API testing can help you manage huge workloads efficiently and keep track of its performance regularly. It is found highly valuable in applications with regular feature updates and launches as automated API testing keeps a check on the performance of various components independently and together to deliver the best performance.
API Products and Services
There are many organizations and companies based on the development of API systems as their main products and as backends for User Interfaces in applications.The utilization of API systems is primarily in the automation of their workflows and to allow developers to consume apps and services. Teams focus on developing efficient API systems when delivering them as products but neglect evaluation of API endpoints. This creates issues for the downstream teams who integrate the API to their applications and affects the reputation of the developing teams. Automated API testing covers all the endpoints exposed to the dependent systems and helps receive feedback about any irregularities found in the systems.
API’s designed as components of UI also fare better with automated testing as it regulates its interaction with UI systems. A proper understanding of the relationship between UI and API is essential in testing their functionality. Restricting the testing processes to only the UI and API working behind the UI works well only in cases where the interaction occurs in our predicted fashion. A wrong prediction of this interaction produces false positive and negative results as the tests are not designed appropriately to evaluate the working mechanisms.
Cost Efficiency
Automated API testing reduces the expenditure of huge amounts of time and resources in API testing for applications. The initial amount of time and money involved in the automation of testing processes is high but it yields great returns with the huge amount of workload it handles with the course of time.
Applications requiring frequent updates and modifications present huge needs for API testing the various components and automation will decrease the expenses on API testing in the long run. API testers work easier with automated testing as it will address the common bugs that occur in applications allowing them to focus on the identification of complex errors and bugs that may occur. It also provides the testers with the backup and support they require when bulk testing interfaces increasing their efficiency and work-rate.
API test automation will greatly simplify integrated testing and regression testing in agile environments evaluating the application and its collaboration with third-party applications every time a new update is made.
Marketing Efficiency and Time Conservation
Automated API testing saves greatly on time to marketing with its efficiency in handling huge loads of work. It enables quicker and more thorough testing of API, shortening release cycles and speeding the process of customer feedback appraisal and modifications based on the feedback. It reveals integration issues across the entire working systems, giving you intelligent insights on its performance. Automated API testing can help you deliver 100% quality assurance in your applications with their ability to test all the integrations with minimal efforts in a very short period of time. Recent surveys reveal that companies comprise automated API tests (54%) more than UI tests (39%) or API and UPI tests together(46%) in their testing processes.
Conclusion
We live in a world driven towards accuracy and perfection and the expectations regarding the API systems are not any different. Companies and developer teams dedicate their efforts and resources to developing bug- free systems and manual testing is highly demanding and strenuous, especially for huge applications. Automated API testing simplifies the working processes and increases the marketing efficiency of companies in launching applications and updates. It builds on the reputation of the company and in the long run yields great Return of Investments. Get automated API testing for your systems and enjoy quality working environments in your pursuit of perfection.
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