Glossary

Agents are software packages that run a set of tests from different locations, often as part of a cloud deployed solution. They are also known as “remote agents” or “load agents”.

A notification about failed security tests in ReadyAPI Test containing additional information about the response and possible reasons for failure.

Application Programming Interface (API) is the way a computer program interacts with another computer program. It is possible and very common that one computer program uses the services of another computer program, and that they are connected through a network. This is often referred to as Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).

A computer that offers an API is a server, and a program that uses the service is a client. A supplier does not have to know anything about the client. All it needs to do is to answer specific questions that the clients ask.

These services will be released independently of each other. They can be developed using different tools, different languages, and by different teams. There are many differences, but a common denominator is the way they communicate. They offer an API that others may or may not use through a network. Also, a common property is that they do not have a user interface.

A SOAP API is a standardized communication protocol for XML-based message exchange. SOAP can use different protocols like HTTP or JMS. In SOAP, all parameters a server needs to be able to respond should be in a W3C standardized XML format and part of the body in a request.

REST web services encode most parameters in a request URL, instead of an XML. Data is encoded in the URL or as request parameters, where encoding is not standardized by W3C.

Assertions are used to validate functionality, usually through messages by comparing parts of the message (or the entire message) to some expected value. Any number of assertions can be added to a test step, each validating some different aspect or content of a response. They are very important for testing at the most basic level. Using assertions, you can verify that you got the expected result. For example, you can verify a proper connection, correct response format, valid data returned, and many other aspects of testing.

For more information, see Verifying Results.

Virtual services use bandwidth settings to simulate the capacity of the network.

Basic access authorization is a method for an HTTP user agent to provide a username and password when making a request.
HTTP Basic authorization uses static, standard HTTP headers to provide authorization information.

Virtual services use congestion settings to simulate overworked nodes in the network or other capacity problems.

Continuous Integration (CI) is a development practice that requires developers to integrate code into a shared repository several times a day. Each check-in is then verified by an automated build, allowing teams to detect problems at an early stage. The main aim of CI is to prevent integration problems.

Most database operations can be described using the CRUD acronym: you Create data, you Read data, you Update, and, finally, you Delete data.

These operations describe the lifecycle of data in a database. RESTful web services map CRUD operations using the HTTP verbs - GET, PUT, POST, PATCH, and DELETE.

A common mapping between CRUD operations and HTTP verbs is:

The exact behavior varies with the exact RESTful service.

Digital certificates provided by clients in TLS or SSL can be used as authorization tokens by verifying the certificate authenticity.

Custom Properties are used for storing values in a project and can be used to transfer or manipulate those values across the entire testing solution.

A Custom Property is a named string value accessible to Scripts, Property Transfers, or Property Expansions.

Data-driven testing means taking larger amounts of test data (input, expected output, and so on) in some external storage (database, spreadsheet, xml-files, and so on) and using it iteratively in your tests.

Used by virtual service behavior settings to simulate time delays in service response time.

The Distributed Mode setting is used when running load test scenarios. When running in distributed mode, tests are run on the agents to which the tests have been deployed.

The opposite of the distributed mode is the local mode.

A form of the property expansion where a groovy script is inserted in the expansion to provide dynamic data.

For more information, see the Dynamic Properties feature.

A format used for request messages. Encoding can be defined in the Test Step properties, and also overridden by adding a .vmoptions file.

The message destination. The target URL without the resource path and parameters, including the port number, if necessary.

For example, for the following URL:

the endpoint is http://www.datasciencetoolkit.org.

A ReadyAPI feature that allows you to quickly change the test setup depending on the target environment.

Using environments, you can easily switch between different sets of SOAP and REST services, project properties, and database connections.

Environments contain only project properties.

A notification of something happening in the service.

Typically, events are handled in test step predefined features, but it is also possible to create custom Event Handlers through scripting.

An Event Handler handles Events. When a particular event occurs, a matching event handler is automatically called to perform various tasks or modifications.

A form-based authorization uses a form to provide a username and password (or other credentials) that are handled by dedicated processes in the backend.

GraphQL is a query language for requesting data from APIs. Unlike multiple resources in REST services, a GraphQL service has a single endpoint. A response from the service contains only the requested data in a form of a JSON object.

Generic Security Services Application Program Interface (GSSAPI) is an IETF standard for an application programming interface for programs to access security services.

HATEOAS is an acronym for Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State. It means that clients only interact with applications through dynamic hypermedia provided by servers.

Clients only need a general understanding of hypermedia to interact with services. Basically, it is the server allowing another server to discover how to interact, rather than having it defined beforehand.

HTTP messages start with headers. Headers transfer information about the message and the ways it should be handled, rather than the message body.

ReadyAPI supports the following authentication methods:

• Basic
• CSC
• Form-based
• Negotiate
• Kerberos
• NTLM

With the HTTP protocol, all HTTP verbs return a response code in the form of a number value. For example, code 200 is returned if everything is OK.

There are a number of return codes, which are grouped by types:

Examples

HTTP methods are actions performed on a resource. ReadyAPI supports the following HTTP methods:

The Java Message Service (JMS) is an API for sending messages between two or more clients. It allows the communication between different components of a distributed application to be loosely coupled, reliable, and asynchronous.

The JMS delivery mode can add insurance to the delivery of messages.

The mode only applies to the delivery, not storage after the receipt.

A JMS header contains system-level information common for all messages, such as the destination and the time when it was sent, while the body contains only application-specific data.

A header can also contain some application-specific information, stored as keyword/value properties. However, not all providers allow an arbitrary amount of data to be stored in a header, it is a good idea to keep most application-specific data in the message body.

When a receiver subscribes to a destination, it can specify a message selector, which acts as a filter for weeding out messages the receiver does not want to see. The message selector must be specified in terms of the message header. For example, a receiver can specify a message selector saying that it wants to see only messages whose JMSType is atg.das.Startup. The message selector can refer to both system-level and application-specific header properties.

Non-persistent messages can occasionally be lost without negative effect.

Persistent messages cannot be lost in transit without causing problems.

JMSPriority indicates the importance of the message. The priority is on a level from 0 (the least important) to 9 (the most important). A level up to 4 is considered "normal", and over 5 is considered "expedited".

JMSReplyTo indicates a JMS Topic or JMS Queue where replies should be addressed.

JMSType is the most important header value. It is a string that is used to identify what kind of message is being sent. Handlers often examine JMSType to see how they should handle an incoming message.

The Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) is an implementation-independent Java API for directory services that allows Java software clients to discover and look up data and objects by names. Additionally, it specifies a Service Provider Interface (SPI) that allows directory service implementations to be plugged into the framework.

Kerberos uses *tickets* to provide mutual authorization between the client and the server, through the symmetric key cryptography with a trusted third party. Kerberos uses UDP port 88 by default.

KeyStore is used by the KeyManager class in Java. KeyManager handles authorization credentials for SSL. A keystore is needed to create self-signed certificates, since signing requires a private key.

KeyStore contains private keys and is required for the SSL connection and client authorization.

A private key is used by servers to provide a certificate from KeyStore corresponding to public keys of a client.

Latency is used by virtual service behavior settings to simulate time delays in the network for responses to requests.

The Local Mode setting is used when running load test scenarios. When running in local mode, tests will only be run on the local computer, and not on any agents.

The opposite of the local mode is the distributed mode.

A media type is a two-part identifier for file formats.
For details, see http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml.

Mocks (mock services) are simulated, approximated, virtualized representations of actual services.

Service Mocking is used when you cannot or do not want to run your tests against the actual service.

In ReadyAPI, mocks are called virtual services or virtual APIs.

Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) is a method of efficiently sending binary data to and from Web services.
For more information, see MTOM at the W3C site.

The Must Understand (mustUnderstand) attribute is used in SOAP headers to indicate if the entry is mandatory for processing.

A mandatory header must be processed by the receiver. If the header is not recognized, the request will fail with a SOAP fault.

Negotiate authorization is a Microsoft protocol that allows a client and a server to dynamically agree on one of several types of authorization.

NTLM is a Microsoft authentication protocol which uses HTTP request/response headers to provide authorization.

Properties used for configuring objects in ReadyAPI.

They are a named string value accessible to Scripts, Property Transfers or Property Expansions.

Object Properties are used in all objects in ReadyAPI, such as Projects, test suites, test cases, test steps, and so on, to maintain a list of options or settings specific to their functionality.

A format of REST web service specifications. Before 2016, the OpenAPI specification was known as Swagger specification.

Specification text: https://github.com/OAI/OpenAPI-Specification/blob/master/versions/3.0.0.md.

Task-based help contents: https://swagger.io/docs/.

A product offering where parts of the system (the core) are offered free with limited features, and the full version is made available as a commercial product.

In ReadyAPI, the core offering is called Base, and the full version is called Pro.

For more information, see the Wikipedia article Open Core.

Any handling of service calls involves some amount of overhead – parsing of data, encoding, creation of files, and so on.

Obviously, as the load increases, it becomes more important to bring down overhead as much as possible.

One way of bringing down overhead is to use a less verbose protocol for requests and responses (for example, JSON instead of XML).

Another way would be to eliminate parsing of encoded data. In a RESTful web service, parameters are (mainly) encoded in the call itself, which eliminates the need for separate parsing of data or files (at least for that part of the service).

Since SOAP relies on XML, it tends to have more overhead than REST.

Microsoft Passport uses a key shared between Microsoft and a dedicated partner site to create a *cookie* that uniquely identifies the user for single-sign-in.

Property Expansions provide common syntax to dynamically insert ("expand") property values during the processing.

This can be used wherever properties are used: requests, values, file names, endpoints, and so on.

The Property Expansion can contain Groovy Script.

Both nested and recursive property expansions are supported.

For more information, see Property Expansion.

A transfer of a property between places in a project: for example, taking a value from a response and passing it to a request.

Usually, the method used is the Property Transfer test step.

A qualified name of an element or attribute in XML content. It is used to identify and access them.

A REST API format based on YAML for service definition of RESTful interfaces. The file describes resources, actions/methods, query/header/path parameters, representations, and so on.
For more information, see http://raml.org.

Coded strings that define an infinite number of possible matches.
For more information, see: Java Regular Expressions.

Request Timeout is an optional test step setting. If no response has been received within this time, the test step is considered as failed.

Representational State Transfer (REST) is a more lightweight protocol than SOAP for the HTTP communication, where parameters are mostly encoded in the request URL, but can also be sent in the message body.

A REST Method is the HTTP Verb used to access a resource.

REST parameters can be used in your requests to parameterize your resources by Levels and Styles.

Parameters can be defined at either a resource or method level.

Parameters at a resource level are inherited by all contained methods and all requests in these method nodes.

Parameters on a method level are only inherited by all requests in that method.

REST requests have five types of parameters:

• QUERY

• HEADER

• TEMPLATE

• MATRIX

• PLAIN

REST representations are serialized text entities – TYPE, Media-Type, Status Code, QName – used to communicate over an HTTP connection.

Representations can be of three basic types: REQUEST, RESPONSE, and FAULT.

REST Requests are calls to a REST service. REST Request can include HTTP Headers and parameters.

A part of the target URL, referring to the object to be accessed with REST methods.

For the URL
http://www.datasciencetoolkit.org/maps/api/geocode/xml?address=Rio&sensor=false
the resource is /maps/api/geocode/xml.

The term RESTful means the same as REST, but sometimes is used to mean web services that implement REST methods and the architecture. They do not require a WADL to be defined. It is possible, and common, to skip this definition. This means that the service definition needs to be implied, or provided elsewhere.

A scale for evaluating services and their RESTfulness. It consists of four levels:

1. HTTP transport – Remote interaction via tunnel, no web mechanisms.

2. Resources – Separate resources instead of a single endpoint.

3. HTTP Verbs – Standardized usage of HTTP verbs to perform actions.

4. Hypermedia controls – HATEOAS is implemented.

For web services to be RESTful in a meaningful sense, they need to reach level 3 of the Richardson Maturity Model.

Comments added to the web service definition schema used to describe the nodes.

Schema inference is a process of generating a Schema from a set of messages.

A machine readable description of an API interface, defining available resources, actions or operations, valid request-response pairs, and other communication properties.

Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is an XML-based communication protocol and encoding format for inter-application communication.

A SOAP API is defined as a standardized communication protocol for XML-based message exchange. SOAP can use different protocols like HTTP or JMS.

All parameters, the server needs to be able to respond to, should be in a W3C standardized XML format and should be part of the body in a request.

The current specification is version SOAP 1.2, though version 1.1 is more widespread. SOAP is widely viewed as a backbone to a new generation of cross-platform cross-language distributed computing applications, termed Web Services.

An attribute used to address the Header element to a specific endpoint.

An actor is an application that can both receive SOAP messages and forward them to the next actor. The ability to specify one or more actors as intermediate recipients makes it possible to route a message to multiple recipients and to supply header information that applies specifically to each of the recipients.

SOAP Operations bind abstract operations to actual SOAP operations in the service, defining the request and response format.

SOAP Requests are XML-based calls to a service, which (optionally) contain SOAP parameters as part of the request body.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) establishes encryption between a server and client at the transport level.

When you design your service to be stateless, you are making it treat each new request as an independent event. It does not store sessions and information about connecting clients. If your service is stateless, you do not need to have a specific client to stay connected to a specific server. Instead of a session with multiple steps between a client and a single server, you get multiple pairs of request-response traffic between a client and multiple service instances. With the growth of traffic, you can add service instances and servers to handle the load. It does not matter where a specific client call ends up, since you do not need to keep track of it.

A subroutine available to applications that access a relational database system. A stored procedure is stored in the database data dictionary.

The former name of the OpenAPI format of REST service specifications. This name was also used to name a framework of API developer tools for creating, editing, verifying and visualizing RESTful web services.

In January 2016, Swagger Specification was renamed to OpenAPI Specification. Since that time, the name Swagger denotes a toolset for working with OpenAPI REST APIs.

Series of test steps run in sequence. A test case is successful when all steps are successful.
For more information, see the Cases section.

A single action taken to test a web service, for example: login, logout, request.
For more information, see the Steps section.

Collection of test cases.
For more information, see the Suites section.

TrustStore is used by the Java TrustManager class. TrustManager handles authorization determines whether a connection is trusted.

TrustStore stores public keys and Certificate Authorities(CA) certificates.

The SSL client uses SSL certificates, usually.cer files, stored in TrustStore to verify the server identity.

See also: KeyStore.

Time To Live (TTL) is the duration of the message validity.

URL encoding converts characters into a web-safe format.

API Versioning means providing multiple versions of the service to different clients.

A web service may serve clients from many different sources. These clients must be able to understand the API. Yet, you want to change and improve the API constantly. This means that a service will have to deal with clients with different specifications and requirements, providing newer functionality for newer clients that can handle it.

The answer to this problem is versioning. This means keeping multiple versions of your service active and letting clients connect to the version that is appropriate for them.

It is recommended to support 3-5 past versions, or any version released within a year, whichever is greater.

Simulated, approximated, virtualized representations of an actual web service.

Virtualization is used when you cannot or do not want to run your tests against the actual service.

In previous versions of SoapUI, virtual services were called Mocks. Earlier versions of ReadyAPI also used the virtual services name.

A virtual action is used in REST virtual services to define responses. An operation can contain a number of responses, which are selected according to the Dispatch Method.

The corresponding term for SOAP virtual services is Operation.

A virtual operation is used in SOAP virtual service to define responses. An operation can contain a number of responses, which are selected according to the Dispatch Method.

The corresponding term for REST virtual services is Action.

A virtual response is used in SOAP and REST virtual services to contain the message sent back in reply to incoming Actions or Operations.

Web Application Description Language (WADL) is the REST equivalent to WSDL. An important difference is that the WADL is not required.

A REST based web service (REST Service) may be defined by a WADL descriptor file. It may look like this:

A WADL definition is similar to WSDL in the way that it defines what you can do. It defines the supported HTTP verbs. In this example, we can see that we are able to get information about books using the HTTP method - GET. We can also notice that there is a required resource that must be part of the request.

For more information, see a W3C standard suggestion.

A service available on a network that allows other systems to communicate with it using a defined protocol. The web part indicates that the service is using transport protocols designed for the World Wide Web, and it uses HTTP for communication.

Web pages provide links you can follow to get more information and navigate through a web site. In the same way, RESTful web services can, by implementing HATEOAS, provide a way for clients to navigate through the API, perform web service discovery to create an API representation describing the interface.

Browsing web services is not supported in SOAP.

A required element of the xs:anyURL type, provides the action property. The children of this element provide the value of this property. It indicates the intent of the SOAP HTTP request and may provide information about the operation to invoke.

The isReferenceParameter attribute is a required boolean which indicates if the message addressing header is a reference parameter.

WS-Addressing reference parameters are used to interact with endpoints as needed.

They contain element information items that are required to properly interact with an endpoint, or are issued by the endpoint.

Reference parameters for different endpoints can be different within the same WSDL.

A pair of values that indicates how a message relates to another message.

The type of the relationship is identified by an absolute IRI.

The related message is identified by an absolute IRI that corresponds to the related message's message id property.

The message identifier IRI may refer to a specific message, or be the following pre-defined URL that means unspecified message.

Web Service Definition Language (WSDL) is a W3C web service description language standard for describing SOAP web services, using XML.

It describes network services as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented or procedure-oriented information. The operations and messages are described abstractly, and then bound to a specific network protocol and message format to define an endpoint.

Related concrete endpoints are combined into abstract endpoints (services). WSDL is extensible to allow description of endpoints and their messages regardless of what message formats or network protocols are used for communication, however, the only bindings described in this document describe how to use WSDL in conjunction with SOAP 1.1, HTTP GET/POST, and MIME.

See Getting started with Schema Inference.

A header used to provide correlation between the encrypted and unencrypted forms of a message.

A set of named web service specifications at specific revision levels, together with a set of implementation and interoperability guidelines recommending how the specifications may be used to develop interoperable web services.

WS-ReliableMessaging is a standard for ensuring delivery of requests to the destination service. ReadyAPI supports it at both the request and test case levels.

XML-RPC is a remote procedure call (RPC) protocol which uses XML to encode its calls via HTTP.

XML-RPC uses method calls to the service and passes parameters to the remote method to achieve results.

Parameter styles can be nested or use maps and lists, allowing for objects and structures both as an input and output.

Most HTTP security methods can be used for authorization.

XML-RPC methods are calls made to a service which pass parameters to the remote method.

XML-RPC parameters are passed by a #REST_method to a remote method in order to retrieve responses or achieve results.

Parameter styles can be nested or use maps and lists, allowing for objects and structures both as an input and output.

XML-RPC Requests are XML-encoded calls to remote methods (optionally) containing parameters.

Originally defined as XML Schema, it is a description of a type of an XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed by XML itself. An XML schema provides a view of the document type at a relatively high level of abstraction.