First off, API stands for Application Programming Interface and essentially allows two separate applications to talk to each other to complete a function. For example, Grabz.it provides an API that allows you to convert HTML into either PDF or into an image. API testing involves checking every aspect of an API to make sure that the API meets all its integration, functionality, performance, reliability, and security requirements. To ensure thorough testing, developers are required to make requests that might not be allowed, to try and expose potential security vulnerabilities in an application. This tells you that API testing is an integral part when it comes to designing a successful API.
There are several types of API testing. They include;
- Integration Testing: This involves testing and validating the integration of third-party applications to expose any faults that might happen during integration and interaction with other applications.
- Functional Testing: This involves testing different scenarios for functionality to make sure that the API works as expected.
- Automation Testing: This uses testing tools that speed up the API testing process while at the same time eliminating human error. Functional API testing is one of the API testing types that are mostly automated.
- Security Testing: This involves ensuring that the implementation and integration of APIs is secure from external attacks. Security testing is also tasked with assessing session management to find any vulnerabilities that might exist.
- Performance Testing: This is a major testing practice for APIs. It is done to establish the number of requests an endpoint can be able to handle and calculate the response time of the API. Performance testing considers every instance to validate the general performance of an API.
B2B businesses need to put in place effective API testing strategies for them to bring growth and innovation to their businesses as well as forge strategic business partnerships. They should focus on a business logic layer when testing their APIs. This ensures that the businesses are able to provide scalable, secure, and reliable connections as well as transactions between different applications. Businesses are also supposed to check the uniformity in how APIs operate and what they return, something that has led to an industry-wide standard called the OpenAPI. To transform any existing APIs to OpenAPIs, businesses can upload their Postman collection on APITransform and have everything else done for them.
With proper API testing, B2B businesses are able to reap many benefits, among them;
- Reducing Overall Project Cost: API testing offers B2B businesses maximum test coverage and faster results. This is because bugs are identified at an early stage, making sure that there are minimal to no bugs when the project is already done. Repairing a bug at an early stage is cheaper compared to when the entire project is already done.
- Faster Execution: B2B businesses are able to get an early evaluation and detection of errors in an application. This is because API tests are faster when it comes to execution and can be done at the development stage rather than having them done at the later stages.
- API Testing Tools: Today, businesses can choose from a wide range of API testing tools that come with a friendly Graphical User Interface that makes it easy to construct requests and read responses. Good examples of testing tools are Postman and RapidAPI. This way, businesses are able to make sure that they have tested every aspect of an API.
- Technology Independent: Data transfer modes in API testing are independent of language or technology. This allows businesses to automate their API testing and select any language that works for them.
APIs have become the core elements in today’s ecosystem. This makes it necessary for companies to invest in developing API tests more than User Interface level tests. This way, they will be able to implement APIs that minimize business running costs and bring efficiency to their businesses.
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