What is blockchain?
Blockchain is a digitized, decentralized, openly shared public ledger that is designed to record transactions, transfer transactions and track assets in business networks. Once the data is shared with the blockchains, it can’t be edited or deleted. The blockchain relies on a peer-to-peer computer network comprised of its users’ machines.
Blockchain is mostly discussed in the context of cryptocurrencies but is often forgotten how vast its applications lie. Blockchain brings security, saves time, improves the speed and validity in its projects that’s why blockchain-enabled technologies are becoming more prevalent. Now to maintain the integrity of the blockchain applications one has to make sure they are fully tested before putting them out in the market and the testing(s) that should be done are given below.
Testing Blockchain Application
Once the application is developed, one should test them right in order to ensure the security, quality, and trust among the clients. The following factors must be factored in for a successful testing strategy for blockchain applications:
API Testing
Blockchain’s activity can be triggered by an event, external calls and events from external systems and depending on the application, API testing needs to address the interactions of applications in the blockchain ecosystem.
The tester must validate the interactions at every step to ensure the API requests and responses are formatted and handled correctly.
Smart contract testing
It’s similar to API testing but this time we include the methods like verifying the boundary value, validating the methods, and verifying the conditional statement. The smart contracts are validated individually and then the validation of encryption is sent to another system via ledger. In short, smart contracts are tested individually and then integrated as a whole.
Node testing :
Since we know the fact that blockchain functions in the peer-to-peer distributed network through the network based on some specific protocols for authentication. So, in node testing, the validity is checked on east each and then made sure if the blockchain works fine. All the nodes are tested individually.
Security
The integrity of the network must be identified since all the transactions are cryptographically encrypted, the identity layer needs to be protected at all costs. Some testing needs to be done to ensure the security of the blockchain.
Shift Left Testing
The need to assure and maintain the best quality of the project is the biggest concern in any project development and that’s when shift-left testing takes part. blockchain project teams are more inclined towards using the Agile and DevOps practices to their development and testing efforts, the reason for that is by shifting testing to the left, it can be done more in simultaneously: perform the tests early, reuse the results data, etc. iterative testing and feedback helps to reduce the chances of risks and defects emerging later in the lifecycle leading to severe damages.
Functional Testing
Functional testing involves use-case scenarios and related business processes like the behavior of smart contracts. with the evolvement of blockchain, paving its path to new applications area it’s a must to apply functional testing.
Performance Testing
Performance testing in Blockchain includes identifying network latency based on block size, network size, expected transaction size, and how long a query takes to return the output with specialized authentication protocol, defining the performance metrics, and accessing if the application is ready for production.
Performance testing is done on the basis of parameters that have been set by the perspective of a client app end-user, or what kind of responses are to be expected to form the system.
The tools for blockchain testing
The same skills are required from a blockchain application tester like from other non-blockchain application testers: logical thinking, critical thinking, attention to detail, etc. but also amazing mathematical and cryptographic skills.
Testing techniques and what needs to be tested is what we are already aware of but its time to get familiar with the tools are out there and already being used:
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Ethereum
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Ethereum Tester
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Truffle
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Ganache (formally Testrpc)
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Populus
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Manticore
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Hyperledger Composer
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Exonumia Testkit
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Embark Framework
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Corda Testing Tools
The blockchain technology is no doubt revolutionary and at the rate, it is emerging and making its place in the market the future of it is bright. Though, the number of people using it is increasing and maintain its quality has become a concern. So, with innovations and going towards new fields or applications, we at Coding Pixel blockchain company the USA believes its testing has become important too. Continuous testing is an essential pillar for establishing trust and includes the testing of APIs as well as through functional and performance testing.