18 Testing the Retail Service Backbone

The Oracle Retail Service Backbone is difficult to test as a stand-alone subsystem. It is part infrastructure and part application, and needs to have the integrating application end-points for even a simple installation.

RSB provides a testing framework to test and validate the RSB installation. This is called Service Interface Testing (SIT) tool.

SIT

There are two types of test framework tools: PSIT and JSIT. PSIT is for PLSQL applications and JSIT is for Java applications. This application can be used to represent any of the Oracle Retail applications. SIT Tools are able to provide response to web service consumers. The responses can be customized for the request to enable different testing scenarios.

SIT tools enable customers to conduct RSB testing without waiting for the participating Retail application implemented. When the Retail application is implemented, the change may be as simple as changing the URL for the application.

SIT tools are not tools for testing, but application that helps testing by providing the missing pieces of integration.

To test a decorator service there are different options like SB Console, third-party applications like SoapUI, RIC, standalone programs and so on.

SB Console

SB Console has a test option for proxy services. In order to test a decorator, select the proxy service of the decorator service. Click the Test Launch Console icon (bug icon) Select the operation to test and provide the input. The results of the test are displayed as XML in the response window.

SB Console can test unsecured services and services using Policy B. It cannot test https based service (thus eliminating Policy A services).

Policy B Testing

Click the proxy service and then Test Launch Console icon to test the service. You can invoke any method. Ping method is the easiest to test. If the invocation is successful, it shows both encrypted and decrypted versions of request and response messages.

In order to test proxy service from test page, you need to provide values for following fields which are at the bottom of the test page:

• keystore.recipient.alias

• keystore.enc.csf.key

• csf-key

You can find the values for these fields from the Business Services > [Business Service] > Security tab of the same decorator project. You will see these values pre-populated in that page. Copy these values and enter on the proxy service test page for successful invocation of a service.

Third-party tools (SoapUI)

SoapUI is an Open Source Functional Testing tool for Web Services.

See http://www.soapui.org for more details.

SoapUI can be used to test decorator services. Unsecured services and services secured with Policy A can be tested using SoapUI. Currently there is no easy way to test services secured with Policy B.

RIC

RIC is another application that can validate the Retail services. In the Health Check tab under Performance And Diagnostics tab the services are listed and the ping operation can be invoked. RIC can test ping operation of unsecured services and services that are secured with Policy A and Policy B. RIC cannot test any other operations other than ping. RIC is an easy way to validate the service connectivity between the Retail applications. However, even if the ping operation is successful there are still scenarios like the ones listed below that can prevent a successful service invocation.

• The payload mismatch between service consumer and service provider (because of different versions of artifacts)

• Incorrect certificate (for secured services) in service consumer side

• Network connectivity between service consumer and service provider machines

• Un-synchronized machine time between service consumer and service provider

• Invalid credentials passed from the service consumer.