ElasTest: Bring observability to your tests
ElasTest is a platform focused on simplifying the testing of distributed systems, offering easy, direct access to the services most used during testing and the ability to analyze the logs generated by each component during tests. It's also a very simple tool to deploy and configure.
Context
Nowadays the required software is more and more complex and interconnected with other software, which makes it difficult and costly to test. ElasTest disrupts this challenging context with the objective of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the testing process, leading to improved quality of the final product with a reduced time-to-market.
The project
ElasTest has been developed by a European consortium formed by universities, research centres and companies -- Naeva Tec included -- funded by the European Commission within the Horizon 2020 programme. Over 3 years the consortium invested resources and time to deliver an innovative testing tool capable of being integrated into the most common continuous integration and validation flows.
To achieve these objectives, ElasTest was designed as a micro-service-based tool running on containers that are launched and invoked on demand by a central brain. The tool offers a friendly GUI and a set of APIs to be invoked by scripts or other tools.
Test Management
Build your testing environment with the tools offered by ElasTest. Easily connect all the components wherever they are and run your tests in a few clicks.
Metrics monitoring
Get useful information from all your components. Every test, web browser, database, application... generates logs and consumes computing resources. And knowing when and how they change can give you a huge advantage as a tester.
Any browser, of any version
As testers we know how hard it is to ensure that our applications work properly in all browsers and versions. ElasTest makes this an easy task.
Log Analyser
A powerful tool for finding what you want in the vast flood of logs. Gathering logs is only the first step -- ElasTest Log Analyser lets you dive into them with a powerful, intuitive and adaptive tool.
Jenkins Integration
ElasTest and Jenkins work together! ElasTest provides a Jenkins plugin so you can use the platform in your CI environment, including log analysis and on-demand browsers.
The technology
Our work
Within the ElasTest project we have:
- Defined and set up the development and testing environment.
- Maintained a 24/7 support service for the development and testing environment.
- Led the design, development and execution of the test plan for each component and for ElasTest as a whole.
- Validated each new release of ElasTest with the latest stable version of ElasTest itself.
- Designed, developed and executed specific test suites for web applications with video-communication features.
The most challenging task we have endured in the project has been using ElasTest to test ElasTest -- we found some issues, but if we are developing a testing tool, why not use it?
Conclusion and lessons learnt
Working in a consortium like this has been enriching. All the partners contributed their best to the project, leading to a tool ready for testing in different kinds of projects and technologies such as 5G, web apps and web-conferencing applications. The research work done to make the best use of state-of-the-art tools and components, and to develop the most innovative ones, has also paid off in the form of published research articles.
At Naeva Tec we were already believers in test automation and QA processes, but we have improved our internal processes by adding ElasTest to them, so we could improve the observability of tests and their results and greatly reduce the time needed to find bugs. We have also seen that many companies can benefit from these improvements, so we now offer our clients our experience and know-how in QA, testing and ElasTest.
More about ElasTest
You can find all the information about ElasTest at https://elastest.io.