In this age of flexible, high performance web services, asynchronous communication is often used to exchange data, allowing the client to continue with other processing rather than blocking until a response is received. SOAtest comes packaged with a server that runs in the background and manages the asynchronous Call Back messages received.
When creating a test suite from WSDL or WSIL documents, you can use the Layout dialog via the test creation wizard to create asynchronous tests. SOAtest supports the major asynchronous communication protocols including Parlay, Parlay X, SCP, and WS-Addressing.
After selecting the Asynchronous option from the test creation wizard, a test suite folder is created which contains automatically configured asynchronous test cases for each operation defined within the WSDL or WSIL you entered.
Notice that two asynchronous tests are created for each WSDL in the test suite. The first test is a SOAP Client test which will send an initial request to the asynchronous service. The second is a tool called the Call Back tool. Using the Call Back tool, SOAtest is able to listen for call back messages that are sent in an asynchronous messaging exchange. For more information on the Call Back tool, see Call Back.
A local server has been integrated into SOAtest, allowing the Call Back tool to listen for these incoming messages. For this reason, it is important that the SOAtest server is running before executing these asynchronous tests. To do this, complete the following:
- Go to Window > Show View > SOAtest Server.
- Right-click the Server node the SOAtest Server view and choose Start Server. A green light next to the node indicates that the server has been successfully started.
