With the use of applications increasing every day, more complex workflows are created within and outside the enterprise environment.
Today, applications are interconnected and integrated with several systems, making it necessary to examine much more than just their functional flow. End-to-end testing is one of the fundamentals of software testing that comes in handy here.
What Is End-To-End Testing? Is It Necessary?
End-to-end testing is a software testing fundamental that tests the complete health of an application from start to end. Real-time simulation procedures are used to check the start to the end of the flow of the application, including the front end, back end, interfaces, as well as endpoints.
Various testing methods may be applied for this software testing fundamental, with results appealing to developers, testers, and even managers.
Often, testing is necessary if you want to market your products as early as possible. End-to-end testing should be done on finished products and systems. Every review done is a test of the complete system. All errors identified must be analyzed, fixed, and re-tested for a product to be ready for the market.
Is It Necessary For Your Product?
It can detect bugs and identify issues early
End-to-end testing is crucial for finding bugs in software that need to be resolved. If the code for your application is ready and you identify a bug after that, it will be a time consuming and expensive task to fix the bug. This can delay the launch of your product in the market and hamper business activities related to it. By performing end-to-end testing early, you will be able to detect bugs early and fix them.
You can also identify other errors and issues for applications based on SOA-based, heterogeneous, and cloud environments. With applications that have several components, performing a 360-degree check through end-to-end testing is required.
It allows for a more consistent user experience
End-to-end testing involves testing the front end as well as the user interface of your product so that a more consistent user experience may be possible. Ultimately, for your application to be successful, it must allow for smooth interactions and experience across multiple platforms and devices. Users are not likely to take to an application and help popularize it if it doesn’t allow for a smooth and consistent user experience. With early testing, you will also be in a better position to respond to user feedback and make changes to your application for better functionality.
It allows for smoother rollouts
You don’t want to experience issues with regard to the rollout of your app. Any issues that arise once your application has been rolled out can cost your business dearly. You will have to spend a lot more money and time to fix the issue, and this could create an obstacle in the day-to-day operations of your business. By performing end-to-end testing in advance, you will identify issues and fix them appropriately so that your products may experience a smoother rollout in the market. This goes a long way in promoting business success in the long run.
It evaluates the health of the back end
End-to-end testing is essential for testing the back end and database layer of the software. The back end database is crucial because it impacts the overall functioning of your software system. If your back end database is compromised, it will create issues in software functioning that will require time and effort to fix later.
Your application’s functioning depends on the health of its back end database and end-to-end testing will be able to assess this for you. This way, you will be able to roll out your app more confident of its functioning.
It can be used to validate processes across multi-tier architecture and systems
If your application consists of multi-tier architecture and systems, the complexity of these systems needs to be tested. End-to-end testing will be able to assess the functioning of your application across its multi-tier architecture and complex systems. This helps to check the overall functioning of the application across systems, as well as the various processes and behaviours of the application across complex systems.
It carries out repeatable tests at different points and processes
With end-to-end testing, it is possible to carry out repeatable tests for various processes at different points of time in the application.
Besides this, the flow of the full software, as well as its subsystems, can be checked using end-to-end testing. It expands the test coverage while ensuring its accuracy for the market. Early identification and fixing of issues helps to reduce the overall costs and makes it possible to take the product to market sooner.
Without end-to-end testing, your business will be missing out on these benefits and will only end up wasting more money and time in the long run.
Conclusion
It is suggested that one should invest in end-to-end testing to avoid product roll-out delays, wasted efforts, and hold-ups in daily operations. All in all, it is a great way for businesses to identify problems early, which is better than having to recall a product for review down the line. To save time and money, end-to-end software testing is a must.
Author — Erik is the MIT-educated COO and Co-Founder of ProdPerfect. He loves unleashing the potential of the great folks in the world and loves helping make decisions with facts. A couple of years ago he co-founded ProdPerfect, where he helps his team grow personally and improve their ability to help people solve QA problems. He also helps customers use actual live data–instead of educated guesses–when deciding what tests to write and maintain. In his spare time, he podcasts and writes books about making fact-based decisions in business and politics.
