Backend Application Test Service

Overview

The Backend Application Test Service provides a mechanism for API publishers to test and validate integrations with backend SOAP services. It allows for executing test runs against a configured backend profile to verify connectivity, authentication, payload transformations, and overall message processing before exposing an operation to API consumers.

This service is an administrative tool designed to be used during the configuration and maintenance of a backend integration. It operates by taking a saved backend profile and an operation, applying any temporary "preview" overrides, constructing a SOAP request, invoking the backend, and then processing the SOAP response.

The primary functions include:

• Individual Operation Tests: Run a test for a single operation with a custom request body or a generated one.
• Bulk Operation Tests: Run tests for all operations in a service version using auto-generated request payloads.
• Synthetic Monitor Preparation: Generate the necessary configuration to set up a synthetic monitor for an operation.
• Test History: Retrieve recent test results for a given backend profile.

The output of a test is a detailed report including the status, latency, previews of the REST and SOAP payloads, and any errors encountered during the process.

How it Works

The service orchestrates a multi-step process to simulate a call to a backend SOAP service and translate the result back into a REST-like format. The runApplicationTest method is the core of this process.

sequenceDiagram
    participant Admin as Admin API
    participant TestService as Backend Application Test Service
    participant SOAPBackend as SOAP Backend

    Admin->>TestService: runApplicationTest(...)
    TestService->>TestService: Load saved profile & operation
    TestService->>TestService: Merge preview settings
    Note right of TestService: Applies temporary overrides for<br/>backend profile, operation,<br/>and transformation rules.
    TestService->>TestService: Build SOAP request payload
    TestService->>TestService: Resolve authentication credentials
    TestService->>SOAPBackend: Invoke SOAP endpoint (HTTP POST)
    SOAPBackend-->>TestService: Return SOAP Response (HTTP)
    TestService->>TestService: Parse SOAP response
    Note right of TestService: Checks for SOAP faults and<br/>extracts attachments.
    TestService->>TestService: Apply response transformations
    TestService->>TestService: (Optional) Save test preview to database
    TestService-->>Admin: Return detailed test result

The process consists of the following steps:

1. Load Configuration: The service retrieves the persistent BackendProfileRecord and OperationRecord from the database using the provided profileId and operationId.
2. Apply Preview Overrides: If preview configurations are supplied (e.g., previewBackendProfile, previewOperation), the service merges them with the loaded records. This allows for testing configuration changes without saving them permanently.
3. Build SOAP Request:
   • The service determines the input requestFormat (json, xml, or soap-envelope).
   • For json format, it can apply request transformation rules to the input payload.
   • It then constructs a full SOAP envelope using the operation's SOAP details and the provided or transformed request body.
4. Resolve Authentication: Based on the authType in the backend profile, it resolves the necessary credentials (e.g., Basic, Bearer) and prepares the Authorization header.

   WARNING

   To prevent credential leakage, the service enforces a strict security guard. Saved backend credentials will only be sent to the saved target endpoint URL and Host header. If a test preview specifies a different target, the test will fail. To test a new target with credentials, you must first save the backend profile with the new target and re-enter the credentials.

5. Invoke Backend:
   • A preliminary TCP socket connection test is performed to check basic network connectivity.
   • An HTTP client sends the SOAP request to the backend's endpointUrl. It configures mTLS if required by the profile.
   • The client respects timeout and retry settings (retryCount, retryBackoffMs) from the backend profile.
6. Process Response:
   • The service captures the backend's HTTP status code and latency.
   • It parses the HTTP response, handling multipart SOAP messages with attachments (SwA).
   • The SOAP body is analyzed for faults. If a fault is detected, the test is marked as failed.
   • If the response is not a fault, response transformation rules are applied to the payload.
   • The service detects binary content (e.g., base64Binary) and generates a special preview containing metadata and a truncated, Base64-encoded sample of the data.
7. Save and Return:
   • If requested, a snapshot of the test run, including payloads and results, is saved to the s2r_backend_test_preview table.
   • A final map is returned containing a comprehensive report of the test run, including status, latency, and previews of the request and response at various stages.

Core Functions

The service exposes several public methods for testing and managing backend integrations.

runApplicationTest

Executes a single test run for a specific operation. This is the primary method for on-demand testing and debugging.

Parameters

Returns

A Map<String, Object> containing a detailed report of the test execution. Key fields include:

• overallStatus: ok or failed.
• previewId: The UUID of the saved test preview, if savePreview was true.
• soapRequestPreview: A trimmed preview of the generated SOAP request envelope.
• soapResponsePreview: A trimmed preview of the received SOAP response envelope.
• restResponsePreview: A map representing the final REST-like response after all transformations.
• backendHttpStatus: The HTTP status code from the backend.
• backendLatencyMs: The round-trip time to the backend in milliseconds.
• failureReason: A description of the error if the test failed.

runGeneratedSampleTests

Executes tests for multiple operations within a service version using automatically generated request payloads based on the operation's contract schema.

This is useful for regression testing an entire backend integration. By default, operations with mutating HTTP methods (POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE) are skipped to prevent unintended side effects during bulk runs.

Parameters

Returns

A Map<String, Object> containing a summary of the bulk run, including counts for successfulCount, failedCount, skippedCount, and a results list with the detailed report for each operation tested.

prepareSyntheticMonitor

Generates a PreparedSyntheticMonitor object containing all the necessary information to configure an external synthetic monitoring job for an operation. This method does not execute a test.

Parameters

Returns

A PreparedSyntheticMonitor object containing the generated SOAP request template, endpoint URL, authentication details, and other parameters required by the monitoring service.

recentPreviews

Retrieves a list of the most recent test previews saved for a given backend profile.

Parameters

Returns

A List<Map<String, Object>> where each map represents a saved test preview record from the s2r_backend_test_preview table.

Data Structures

BackendProfilePreview

A record containing a subset of BackendProfileRecord fields that can be temporarily overridden for a single test run.

OperationPreview

A record containing a subset of OperationRecord fields that can be temporarily overridden for a single test run.

Troubleshooting

When a test run fails, the overallStatus will be failed and the failureReason field will contain an error message. Common failure scenarios include:

See Also

• Backend Profile Management: Configuration of backend endpoints, authentication, and connection settings.
• Operation Configuration: Definition of individual operations, including their REST-to-SOAP mappings.
• Payload Transformations: Documentation on creating and applying request and response transformation rules.
• Contract Management: Information on defining and managing service contracts, which are used for generating test samples.

All SOAP-to-REST docs