Integration Testing

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System Integration Testing (SIT), in the context of software systems and software engineering, is a testing process that exercises a software system’s coexistence with others. System integration testing takes multiple integrated systems that have passed system testing as input and tests their required interactions. Following this process, the deliverable systems are passed on to acceptance testing.

Systems integration testing (SIT) is a testing phase that may occur after a system test of a smaller context. An additional user acceptance test (UAT) may follow. Many organizations do not have a SIT phase and the first test of UAT may include the first integrated test of all software components.

Although each software module is unit tested, defects still exist for various reasons like

• A Module, in general, is designed by an individual software developer whose understanding and programming logic may differ from other programmers. Integration Testing becomes necessary to verify the software modules work in unity
• At the time of module development, there are wide chances of change in requirements by the clients. These new requirements may not be unit tested and hence system integration Testing becomes necessary.
• Interfaces of the software modules with the database could be erroneous
• External Hardware interfaces, if any, could be erroneous
• Inadequate exception handling could cause issues.

Strategies of Integration Testing

Software Engineering defines variety of strategies to execute Integration testing, viz.

• Big Bang Approach :
• Incremental Approach: which is further divided into the following
  • Top Down Approach
  • Bottom Up Approach
  • Sandwich Approach – Combination of Top Down and Bottom Up

Below are the different strategies, the way they are executed and their limitations as well advantages.

Big Bang Approach

Here all component are integrated together at once and then tested.

It has an advantage of being convenient for small systems.

It has following disadvantages:

• Fault Localization is difficult.
• Given the sheer number of interfaces that need to be tested in this approach, some interfaces link to be tested could be missed easily.
• Since the Integration testing can commence only after “all” the modules are designed, the testing team will have less time for execution in the testing phase.
• Since all modules are tested at once, high-risk critical modules are not isolated and tested on priority. Peripheral modules which deal with user interfaces are also not isolated and tested on priority.

Incremental Approach

In this approach, testing is done by joining two or more modules that are logically related. Then the other related modules are added and tested for the proper functioning. The process continues until all of the modules are joined and tested successfully.

Incremental Approach, in turn, is carried out by two different methods of Bottom Up and Top Down.

Stub and Driver

Incremental Approach is carried out by using dummy programs called Stubs and Drivers. Stubs and Drivers do not implement the entire programming logic of the software module but just simulate data communication with the calling module.

Stub: Is called by the Module under Test.

Driver: Calls the Module to be tested.

Bottom-up Integration

In the bottom-up strategy, each module at lower levels is tested with higher modules until all modules are tested. It takes help of Drivers for testing

It has following advantages:

• Fault localization is easier.
• No time is wasted waiting for all modules to be developed unlike Big-bang approach

It has following disadvantages:

• Critical modules (at the top level of software architecture) which control the flow of application are tested last and may be prone to defects.
• An early prototype is not possible

Top-down Integration

In Top to down approach, testing takes place from top to down following the control flow of the software system. It takes help of stubs for testing.

It has following advantages:

• Fault Localization is easier.
• Possibility to obtain an early prototype.
• Critical Modules are tested on priority; major design flaws could be found and fixed first.

It has following disadvantages:

• Needs many Stubs.
• Modules at a lower level are tested inadequately.

Sandwich Integration

In the sandwich/hybrid strategy is a combination of Top Down and Bottom up approaches. Here, top modules are tested with lower modules at the same time lower modules are integrated with top modules and tested. This strategy makes use of stubs as well as drivers.

Conducting Integration Testing

The Integration test procedure irrespective of the Software testing strategies (discussed above):

• Prepare the Integration Tests Plan
• Design the Test Scenarios, Cases, and Scripts.
• Executing the test Cases followed by reporting the defects.
• Tracking & re-testing the defects.
• Above two steps are repeated until the completion of Integration is successful.

Guidelines for Integration Testing

• First, determine the Integration Test Strategy that could be adopted and later prepare the test cases and test data accordingly.
• Study the Architecture design of the Application and identify the Critical Modules. These need to be tested on priority.
• Obtain the interface designs from the Architectural team and create test cases to verify all of the interfaces in detail. Interface to database/external hardware/software application must be tested in detail.
• After the test cases, it’s the test data which plays the critical role.
• Always have the mock data prepared, prior to executing. Do not select test data while executing the test cases.

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