Home
Getting Started
This guide provides an overview and describes the tasks to get you started with Rational® Integration Tester.
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) testing
A SOA consists of business processes that are implemented by linking individual services. The linking can be done programmatically or with tools based on Business Process Execution Language (BPEL). SOA testing can be challenging because there is no GUI; the focus is on testing interfaces and services.
Rational® Integration Tester capabilities
Rational® Integration Tester provides a wide range of features and functionality that give users the ability to test their integration and SOA projects successfully.

Getting Started
This guide provides an overview and describes the tasks to get you started with Rational® Integration Tester.
- Rational® Integration Tester overview
  You can use Rational® Integration Tester to create, modify, and run service tests, and performance tests.
- Testing methodology
  By following four basic guidelines, you can incorporate Rational® Integration Tester into your testing methodology. These guidelines drive efficient and expedient integration testing, and they can be applied to your testing process and infrastructure requirements.
- Service-oriented architecture (SOA) testing
  A SOA consists of business processes that are implemented by linking individual services. The linking can be done programmatically or with tools based on Business Process Execution Language (BPEL). SOA testing can be challenging because there is no GUI; the focus is on testing interfaces and services.
  - Rational® Integration Tester capabilities
    Rational® Integration Tester provides a wide range of features and functionality that give users the ability to test their integration and SOA projects successfully.
  - SOA test strategies
    SOA is more than simple web services that provide interfaces to existing applications. An SOA implementation is likely to involve multiple services and vendors and is considered a complex computing problem. Many companies try implementing automated testing for GUI solutions. Due to the changing nature of GUIs, they find it difficult to achieve ROI. That is not to say that GUI testing cannot be achieved, but it must be done during the project lifecycle by applying automated interface testing. Focusing on programmatic interfaces and services in automated testing offers significant ROI, as the design contracts for these interfaces change less often, changing business processes in a distributed environment is costly. When it comes to SOA, a different approach, skill-set, and mind-set are required for testing.
  - Rational® Integration Tester user profiles
    Users that can use Rational® Integration Tester to test an SOA fall into multiple categories.
  - SOA and Rational® Integration Tester
    Rational® Integration Tester primary intent is to simplify the process by which the user builds tests (that is, schema-driven message creation, test driven development, and so on).
- Getting started with testing
  You can start using Rational® Integration Tester by completing the preliminary tasks such as creating and running a test, creating and running a stub, recording an HTTP proxy, and running a stub in a Docker container.
- Rational® Test Control Panel overview
  Rational® Test Virtualization Server stubs designed in Rational Integration Tester are published to Rational Test Control Panel, which holds them in a repository.
- Rational® Integration Tester accessibility features
  Users who have a physical disability, such as limited vision, can review the available accessibility features to use Rational® Integration Tester.

Rational® Integration Tester capabilities

Rational® Integration Tester provides a wide range of features and functionality that give users the ability to test their integration and SOA projects successfully.

Synchronize with external resources

Few integration or SOA testing projects are simple. Most rely on complex systems and resources that are external to Rational® Integration Tester (for example, WSDLs, SAP applications, TIBCO BusinessWorks projects). To enable reliable and accurate interactions with these external resources, Rational® Integration Tester provides a powerful synchronization feature. Synchronization references an external resource and creates all of the local artifacts that you need to begin testing that resource immediately. Synchronization can also help to enforce standards across a project, encourage better change control, and ensure that proper environment bindings are used.

For more information about synchronization in Rational® Integration Tester, see Synchronization view located within Architecture School

Share projects

Most testing projects require the interaction of multiple users who might be working in the same location. To ensure that all users can access up-to-date resources in their current project, Rational® Integration Tester projects can be shared by using Git. Git integrated with Rational® Integration Tester is a reliable way to share projects among multiple users without having to manually provide version control and rollback capabilities. For more information about Git in Rational® Integration Tester, refer to Rational Integration Tester and Git.

Record

Rational® Integration Tester can record events in the system under test, and recorded messages can be used to create tests and stubs more quickly and accurately. Recording is supported by HTTP, EMS, RV, and webMethods IS transports.

For more information about recording, see Recording Studio.