Configuring a run of a virtual service

Disclaimer: This release contains access to the Virtual services that virtualize the Istio based services feature in IBM® Rational® Test Automation Server as a Tech Preview. The Tech Preview is intended for you to view the capabilities for virtualized services offered by Rational® Test Automation Server, and to provide your feedback to the product team. You are permitted to use the information only for evaluation purposes and not for use in a production environment. IBM provides the information without obligation of support and "as is" without warranty of any kind.

When you have virtual service resources that are in the repositories added to your project, you must configure a run of the virtual service to start an instance of the virtual service on Rational® Test Automation Server.

Before you begin

You must have completed the following tasks:

About this task

You can start the following types of stubs contained in API Suites from the Resources page on Rational® Test Automation Server:
  • Virtual services that utilize the WebSphere® MQ transport.
  • Virtual services that utilize the HTTP transport.
  • Virtual services that virtualize the Istio based services. You can run virtual services for the following types of requests received or sent by the Istio service mesh:
    • Requests received by services in the Istio service mesh.
    • Requests sent from namespaces in the Istio service mesh to external services that are not in the Istio service mesh.

Procedure

  1. Log in to Rational® Test Automation Server.

    The team space that contains your project is displayed.

  2. Open the project that contains the virtual service resources in the test assets by clicking Projects > My Projects > project_name.

    The Overview page is displayed.

  3. Click Virtualization > Resources in the navigation pane.

    The Resources page is displayed.

  4. Select the branch of the repository that contains the virtual services that you want to run from the list in the Branch field.

    All virtual services in the selected branch are displayed on the Resources page.

  5. Identify the virtual service by completing any of the following steps:
    • Search for the virtual service by entering the name or the path of the virtual service in the repository in the Search field box.
    • Create a filter query by using the New filter option and complete the following steps:
      1. Create a rule with an appropriate operator.
      2. Select criteria such as Name, Path, Instance number, or Instance state. Select the condition and enter the value for the criteria. Apply the filter query.

        The virtual services that match the filter criteria are displayed.

      3. Save the filter query for retrieving it from the saved filters list.
    • Retrieve a saved filter by using the Open filters icon Image of the icon. by completing the following steps:
      Note: To open the filter query, you must have created and saved a filter query.
      1. Select the saved filter.
      2. Apply the filter.

        The virtual services that match the filter criteria in the filter that is applied are displayed.

  6. Click the Open action menu icon Image of the action menu icon in the row of the identified virtual service, and then click Execute icon Image of the icon..

    The Execute virtual service dialog is displayed.

  7. Select the version of the virtual service that is in the repository that you want to start by performing any of the following actions:
    • Expand the list in the Version field, find the version of the test resources, and then select the version.
      Use the following details about the version of the test resources that are displayed to identify the version that you want:
      • Commit message.
      • Tags labeled for the version committed.
      • The user who committed the version to the repository.
      • Relative time of the commit. For example, 2 hours ago or 3 days ago.

      The list displays the versions of the test resources committed by all users to the branch in the repository. The versions are arranged with the latest version committed followed by the versions committed previously.

    • Expand the list in the Version field, and then search for the version that you want to select by entering a partial or the complete commit message of that version.

      The version that matches the search criteria is displayed and it is selected for the test run.

  8. Select the environment that was used to bind the physical and logical resource in the API project, in the ENVIRONMENT tab.
    Important: The configuration that you set for the run in the Execute virtual service dialog is preserved when you run the same virtual service again. The configurations that you set are not available to other members when they want to run the virtual service. For example, if you selected an environment, the same environment is selected when you run the virtual service again.
  9. Enter a label, if required.

    A label that you enter for the test run that helps you to identify the virtual service instance on the Instances page. The label that you entered is displayed for the virtual service under the Labels column on the Instances page. After you have created a label, any member of the project can use that label.

  10. Follow the instructions if you want to modify the configurations for the behavior of the virtual service:
    1. Click the BEHAVIOR tab, if it is not already open.
    2. Configure or change the settings for the following options:
      Note: The settings displayed are the settings that were configured for the virtual service when it was authored in Rational® Integration Tester.
      Option Description
      Performance
      The following settings are available for handling of requests by the virtual service:
      Option Description
      Optimize performance
      If enabled, attempts are made to reduce the amount of processing between the time the virtual service receives a request and the time it sends a response. Specific optimizations depend on the message contents, as in the following examples:
      • When the virtual service receives requests, all validations are disabled, and for all XML payloads, the store and filter actions are converted to use XPath expressions.
      • When the virtualization sends responses, any store actions set on a message are disabled, and any XML content is collapsed when the virtual service is compiled instead of being collapsed every time that a response is sent.
      The optimization is disabled as the default action for this setting and you can enable the performance optimization if you fully understand the implications of optimizing the performance.
      Threads

      The maximum number of threads used in processing requests received by the virtual service. The default number of threads is 10.
      Operation Specifies an operation referenced by the virtual service.
      Response time

      Specifies the response time behavior for responses sent by the virtual service for the selected operation.

      You can modify the value by selecting a value from the following options:
      Option Description

      No delay

      Select this option for a response with no delay.

      Minimum delay

      Select this option for a delay in the response by entering the required delay in milliseconds (ms).

      Uniform distribution

      Select this option for a uniformly distributed response time by specifying the minimum and maximum delay in milliseconds (ms).

      Gaussian distribution

      Select this option for a response time with Gaussian distribution by specifying the minimum and maximum delay in milliseconds (ms).
      Passthrough

      Specifies the pass through behavior for the selected operation when requests are not handled within the virtual service.

      You can modify the value by selecting a value from the following options:
      Discard This option stops the system under test from receiving the intercepted message. This option can disrupt the calling system. For example, the system might time out while it waits for a reply.
      Pass Through This option passes the intercepted message to the system under test, with an optional delay.
      Simulate Error This option returns an error to the calling system. The message is not passed to the system under test.
  11. Follow the instructions, if the virtual service references datasets.
    • You can use the dataset referenced in the asset.
    • You can choose to override the dataset with another data source. If alternative data sources are available, select from the set of overrides available.
  12. Follow the instructions if the virtual service requires a variable that must be passed at run time.
    1. Click the VARIABLES tab, if it is not already open.
    2. Choose one of the following methods to add the variables:
      • To add new variables manually, click the Add Variable icon Image of the Add icon, enter the name, and value of the variable.
      • To add new variables from your local computer or from the Git repository that is associated with your server project, click the Upload icon Image of the icon and select the Upload from local system or Browse from server to select the variable file.
        Note: You must have created a file with the variables before you can select the file.
  13. Click Advanced to make the following advanced configurations:
    1. Enter any JVM arguments that must be passed at run time in the JVM Arguments field.
      Note: Each JVM argument should be separated with white space.

      For example, you can set a maximum Java heap size.

    2. Enter the environment variables that must be passed at run time in the Environment Variables field, if applicable.

      For example, enter the environment variables when the third-party libraries that are used in the run refer to the environment variables for configuration.

    3. Select the stub logging level for the virtual service from the following options in the Logging list:
      Option Description
      None

      Specifies that the virtual service does not write log messages.
      Normal Specifies that the virtual service writes informational messages.
      Debug Specifies that the virtual service writes informational and debugging messages.
    4. Enter other configuration options as parameters and their values in the Additional Configuration Parameters fields, if applicable.

      You can refer to the additional parameters that you can use for virtual services from the topic in the related links.

      For example, if you want to start the virtual service to run in a new container, you can specify the following parameter and its value:
      Parameter name Value
      stub.dedicated.container true
      Note: Click Add to add additional parameters.
    Note: You must separate the arguments or variables with a white space when you enter them in the same line or start each argument or variable on a new line.

    The default value for the fields for the advanced settings is null or an empty field.

    Notes:

    • If you have configured some or all of the settings for the current run, and you do not want to continue with those settings, you can reset the settings by clicking Reset.

    • If you want to repeat a run and do not want to use the saved settings from a previous run, you can reset all the saved settings to their default values by clicking Reset.

  14. Click Execute.

Results

You have started a virtual service from the Resources page on Rational® Test Automation Server.

What to do next

After you start a run of a virtual service, you can view the status of the virtual service in any of the following ways:
  • On the Resources page, the virtual services are displayed with the state as Running along with the number of instances that are running in the Active instances column.
  • On the Resources page, you must click the Show in instances page icon Image of the icon. in the row of the virtual service to view all the running instances of a particular virtual service on the Instances page.
  • Go to the Instances page by clicking Virtualization > Instances. You can view instances of all the virtual services that are running and are displayed with the state as Running under the State column. You can also view the requests that are received by the virtual service. The number of requests is displayed as number of hits when you hover the cursor over the text in the Activity column.

You can view the details, configuration settings, routing rules, usage statistics, or logs of a specific running instance of the virtual service. See Viewing configurations of running instances of virtual services.

You can modify the behavior or the logging level of a running instance of the virtual service that you started before running tests on them. See Modifying configurations of running instances of virtual services.

When you have completed testing the virtual service, you must stop the running virtual service. See Stopping virtual services.