Automated testing for Oracle has its fair share of challenges, so make sure you know what they are and how to solve them so your tests run uninhibited.
Companies that use Oracle for their database needs know how crucial it is to make sure that their database stays working. Any loss of access to data can force all business processes to grind to a halt and incite a scramble to recover that data. Why go through all that stress and hassle when you can test your database and get alerted the second something smells fishy? Well, there are challenges with testing an application with so many intricacies, but there are solutions as well!
Oracle goes through lots of updates, especially when Oracle Cloud can have a million and three updates a week, and testing needs to be able to handle them all without getting overwhelmed or letting tests slip through the cracks. Manual testing can't handle this amount of testing, and some automated testing tools don't have the capacity to run all the tests in a timely manner either. And the last thing you want to do is run tests less often at the cost of quality.
The more complex a test is, the more likely it is to break, especially if the test contains a high amount of dynamic data. When the goal of automated testing is to be faster and more scalable than manual efforts, it's understandably frustrating when you have to spend your time fixing brittle tests rather than puzzling through actual bugs alongside the DevOps team.
Many tests are business requirement-driven, which means that end-to-end tests are a frequent flier in testing. Unfortunately, end-to-end testing involves a lot of steps, and many steps are reproduced across multiple tests, like the checkout process at the end of an online shopping journey. This makes test writing tedious and monotonous.
Though your tests might be testing that the user interface part of your Oracle database is working, are they really digging beneath the surface? Insufficient test coverage means that if there's an issue with your database in the service or back-end layer, you won't know until it's too late.
Now, are we the type to write out all these challenges to testing Oracle and Oracle Cloud and then leave you to the wolves? Most certainly not! The following solutions to each of the challenges can be found in Virtuoso, our testing solution to all your testing pain.
With parallel testing, Virtuoso can run as many tests as you require in a much shorter time frame. Unlike some automation frameworks that require special plugins or addons to run tests in parallel, Virtuoso's parallel testing is ready to go from the start on as many browsers, OSes, and devices as you need.
Fixing brittle tests is never fun, so we've found a way to reduce test maintenance to near zero with our seemingly magical self-healing tests. Our bots dive into the DOM of a web application to gather IDs, selectors, attributes, and any and all elements of your dynamic data so when something changes like the color of a button or the location of a form, the test self-heals and keeps your testing uninhibited and uninterrupted.
It's tedious writing the same steps over and over, especially in end-to-end tests where fifty journeys all end with the same checkout process. You can add test steps to our Checkpoint Library and reuse steps across your entire project, eliminating the amount of time that you would have spent rewriting.
Insufficient test coverage is a thing of the past with UI/API testing. By using sample test data and writing steps for your UI, you can make API calls that ensure that the front end of your database is connecting properly with the back end where all your data is stored. Combined with Continuous Testing, you get alerted to a problem before it's discovered with simple UI testing and you can make sure it's fixed ASAP.
Convinced that Virtuoso is what you need to keep your Oracle test automation running smoothly? Then book a demo with our test experts and they'll show you custom solutions to your testing pains. Or if you'd like to tackle Virtuoso yourself, give our two-week free trial a go. Either way, you'll see that Virtuoso is the test automation tool for you!
