RIA Quality Assurance

Communication debugging consists of the following features:

• Visualization – AppPuncher displays client/server traffic to detect application faults, invalid requests and responses

• Evaluation – User can evaluate application behavior (responses) using custom, user-defined values in requests. Any captured request can be replayed with custom data entered by the user in order to inspect application’s response. For example, a SOAP or AMF method invocation can be modified to contain user-defined value for a method argument.

• Pause Conditions – AppPuncher can be configured to pause application execution when a user-defined condition evaluates to true.

AppPuncher supports chaining of the requests where output of an invocation can be used as input for another one. Using this approach it is possible to achieve a high level of functionality coverage. Additionally, AppPuncher can execute functional testing by applying high load scenarios.

AppPuncher can capture messages between an RIA client and the server backend application. Captured messages are in the form of issued requests and the corresponding responses. Messages can be grouped to represent user activity in a particular role and then saved as a repeatable test-case. A test-case can be run at any point of time to make sure the server returns the same responses as during the original execution. Additionally, user can create a schedule for automated test case execution. At the end of the test case execution, AppPuncher creates a summary report which can be delivered via email.

Before an RIA is released into production, it is very important to understand the limits of the solution when it serves multiple users. Creating a real-world simulation with a high number of concurrent clients using the RIA can be a challenging task. AppPuncher provides a solution for creating and running stress tests for RIAs. The product supports several scenarios for conducting stress tests. It can be configured to increase the load until there is a server failure, alternatively it allows completely custom execution stress test configurations - test administrator can create a chart representing the number of concurrent users at any point of time. Similar to the regression testing, AppPuncher generates a report for every stress test execution.