Software systems are rapidly becoming more and more complex. This in turn makes testing more of a challenge then ever before. Today’s systems may depend upon several third party applications and/or web based services that compound testing efforts. Two major issues are: 1) Creating the appropriate test environment; and 2) Using the appropriate tools for developing and automating test cases. These two issues are discussed briefly here. Test environments have been traditional problems for QA teams. With the advent of more complex system structures, this problem is now compounded. A new set of tools has emerged to help alleviate these difficulties. Tools such as Parasoft’s Service Virtualization allow QA teams to more easily replicate the various components of vastly more complex systems. Once you’ve picked your http://celltrackingapps.com/ poison, now you can get to specifics. Many software systems and applications consist of 3rd party web services. These services have well defined interfaces that must be tested appropriately. The most popular tools for this type of testing are SoapUI and SoapUI Pro. The open source SoapUI features handle basic web service invocation, development and simulation along with functional and load testing. SoapUI Pro, the commercial version of the product, focuses primarily on features designed to improve user productivity. SoapUI Pro is now owned and distributed by SmartBear, makers of TestComplete and other testing tools.