Latest news about Bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies. Your daily crypto news habit.
If you are associated with the world of banking or data transactions, one thing that you would definitely get to encounter in your routine is ‘Blockchain.’
As per the definition, Blockchain is a shared ledger that is meant to record transactions and keep track of assets across a business network. However, in plain language, Blockchain is ultimately a software technology that is implemented to secure the payment process.
Since Blockchain technology is one of the next-gen technologies that are going to dominate the future of the tech industry, it is vital that business giants should start leaning on blockchain app testing services to ensure a secure and bright future. Since the process involves extensive transactional verification, testing all the components of the payment gateway system along with other checks could help cut off any chances of loss, vulnerability, attacks, or system failure at any point in time.
Let us quickly jump on understanding the key characteristics of testing Blockchain-based Applications while working on the testing aspects related to blockchain software testing practices, the tools, and most importantly, forming the right teams.
Let’s begin.
The Key Characteristics of Blockchain Testing
1. Creating The Right Test Environment
When you start working on Blockchain testing, it needs you to understand that any transactions run through Blockchain change their current state. Thus, making any edits to the particulars requires the use of Miners that help to verify a particular transaction which could get extremely expensive.
Especially when you need to work on bitcoins, the cryptocurrency testing service provider usually has to spend hundreds of dollars on the execution of any transaction, even for the test process. Nevertheless, when you are working on the test environment, considering using Testnet to avoid loss of money during the QA process. This is because Testnet brings you coins that can be used for testing an application leaving no chances of the blockchain process break. It can be a local Testnet setup or can be a public setup that you can use to test Blockchain.
Besides, if you are looking for Ethereum-based apps, you can simply lean on the Ropsten network as you can always use free coins available from the faucet, while you can return the additional coins from the pool back to the faucet website.
On top of that, you can consider using Testnet to validate network transactions. Though it may appear a bit consuming, you have to be a bit patient with the validation process as it does not perform well enough on a real network. However, to speed up the process, you can set multiple virtual networks to ensure all cryptocurrency transactions are verified with the use of fewer resources and time.
2. Always Remember The Irreversible Nature of Transactions
Since blockchain apps run on decentralized platforms, there is no central server, and the apps usually run across a network of numerous systems. This means any errors or failure that occurs on the way could not be reversed. Thus, it is necessary that testers should consider the importance of verifying the details associated with every transaction allowing more responsible operations.
3. Every Transaction Need You To Pay
The transaction process must be an error-free operation, and it is entirely the task of blockchain testing services you hire to make the test system and environment correlate well. Especially when every transaction involves certain expenses, testing needs to be highly specific. For instance, processing a bitcoin transaction would need paying miners, which is entirely managed by the software testing service provider.
If you need to work using Ethereum, make sure you understand every transaction involves special currency use called gas, I.e., every operation with high complexity and greater computation requirement needs more gas. Besides, transaction fees for every activity are a combination of gas cost and gas price, which is usually defined as the amount of work/number of labor hours and hourly wage to pay.
Moreover, a low gas price could make it difficult for you to process the transaction as you may have to struggle in the network processing the operation. Thus, a maintainable gas price is necessary to process transactions on Ethereum.
Types of Testing For Blockchain-based Apps
Unlike ordinary payment apps, testing a blockchain application is different and demands extensive efforts. The testing strategy and process need to be aligned completely with the predefined requirements shared by the stakeholder.
However, it is vital that blockchain testing should consider ideas that could cover every predictable and unpredictable user scenario. Besides, the types of testing procedures that can aid the process include:
- Functional Testing: To keep assured of functional requirements.
- Load Testing: To check on system capacity for handling transactional data.
- Security Testing: To ensure the cloud setup or on-prem system containing keys is encrypted against any security attacks. This is usually done using Pen testing as it is implemented to keep the transactions private and safe for every unique attempt to access.
The Tools You Need?
If you need to have the best out of blockchain testing services, it is necessary that you should choose only the best tools available. This would not only help you ensure more successful results but create applications that are more effective. Let’s find out what these tools are and what do they do:
- When you need to have a real-time check of the transactions for wallet balance and other account details, your Testnet Indexing tool is made to simplify your objectives. The best part of using Testnet is that it does not need you to spend thousands of dollars on testing your blockchain project.
- Tools to help you establish a local node for Blockchain to assure comfortable UI.
- API testing tools such as Postman and soapUI can come in handy.
- Encoding & Encryption software
- Database testing tools.
- Bug tracking & test tracking tools.
Using Test Automation In Blockchain-based Apps
Since Blockchain apps are built over a decentralized concept, these could be easily automated for test purposes. Especially when there are so many nodes and combinations involved in the process, automation testing services are a great solution to choose. The best part is automation allows you to analyze real information on the network while sending requests to the TestNet website.
Picking The Right Test Team
Finding the right team to work on your QA initiatives is very important. Since Blockchain is a tricky technology, attaining your QA goals should involve a team that holds a great experience of handling customer’s domains. Moreover, it should some experts that have an analytical mindset and language knowledge to get over coding issues.
Above all, the testers involved in the process should have all the understanding related to numbers since working on transactional data verification may involve a lot of counting.
Summing It Up
When it comes to software trends and next-gen technologies, Blockchain is something that has cached the interest of all the industries. With the rich opportunities, it has for finance, banking, and almost every vertical that involves transactional operations, Blockchain applications are scaling continuously.
However, meeting the level of competence and security goals on your application requires critical testing to mine into the defects. All in all, sticking to the various aspects of Blockchain App testing is highly crucial to the development lifecycle of the project when you need to ensure a smooth, secure, and safe transactional journey to the end-user. It is only the right choice of practices, tools, techniques, and teams that make it all to a viable end product you seek.
Author Bio
Kanika Vatsyayan is Vice-President Delivery and Operations at BugRaptors who oversees all the quality control and assurance strategies for client engagements. She loves to share her knowledge with others through blogging. Being a voracious blogger, she published countless informative blogs to educate audience about automation and manual testing.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.