How to Test for API Performance and Get More from Your Functional Tests

  May 09, 2016

APIs have stepped into the spotlight in recent years, thanks to the explosive growth of web and mobile applications that rely on APIs to access information and perform critical functions.

SmartBear Software recently published the results of a global API industry survey, which included responses from more than 2,300 software professionals. When asked which metric respondents that work for organizations that provide APIs use to measure the success of their APIs, performance was the #1 response.

The focus on performance aligns with the expectations of consumers, who look at performance and availability as a top concern when evaluating an API.

But while API performance is crucial for success, what we often see during the API delivery lifecycle is that in an absence of additional resources during development, performance problems are often pushed aside until the very end of a project.

Why? In addition to the fact that many teams are functioning with limited testing resources, last-minute changes, bugs that prevent test execution, and infrastructure limitations can also get in the way.

How can your organizations overcome these performance testing roadblocks?

While time and resources will always put pressure on development teams, using the right API testing tools can help improve efficiency and get more from your testing workload.

When asked to provide the factors that are most important when evaluating API tool, we found that teams want tools that easily integrate with existing systems and are easy to implement. They also want tools to improve efficiency by re-using tests, scripts, and resources.

The ability to re-use functional test scripts for performance testing is one of the biggest benefits of using an API testing tool like SmartBear’s LoadUI NG Pro, which is part of the Ready! API platform.

With LoadUI NG Pro, you can reuse your functional API tests built on the industry’s most trusted open-source based API testing tool, SoapUI, to speed testing and reduce the time it takes you to deploy high performance REST and SOAP web services.

By reusing functional tests for performance testing, you can:

  • Test the speed and scalability of new changes to your APIs in minutes, not days
  • Preview API performance behaviors before releasing to production environments
  • Shift performance insights more to the left so developers build more reliable code

How can you use LoadUI NG Pro to get more from your functional tests?

Setting up your first API performance test with LoadUI NG Pro can be done in a matter of minutes. And to help you get the most from the tool, we recently published our newest eBook: How to Ensure Performance and Security Throughout the API Lifecycle by Reusing Test Scripts.

The goal of this eBook is to provide practical advice teams can use to improve the efficiency of their performance testing process.

We’ll cover:

  • Testing’s role in API performance
  • Improving efficiency by reusing functional tests
  • Different use cases for API performance testing
  • Going beyond performance: using functional tests for API security

This eBook will provide practical advice that can be applied to all teams which work with APIs but will also show step-by-step examples of how to run effective load tests with LoadUI NG Pro.

Get your copy!

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