6 Reasons Why API Testing is Crucial

Think about the last time you used your smartphone to check the weather, booked a flight somewhere, used your device for directions, or made a payment using PayPal. While you were doing each of these activities, the only way you were able to complete the task was through the help of an API.

Maybe your business uses APIs, maybe you have users that rely on APIs to access your services. Regardless of why you use it, this technology is an extremely important aspect that not only determines how we interact with technology but allows us to do so. As you may have guessed then, developing an API is certainly not an overnight or one-and-done process.

It starts with visualizing how the API will perform and benefit those who use it, every software project begins with this kind of vision. Now, yes, you could take this vision, go through the planning process, implement the API, and hope to see some ROI relatively quickly. However, without any planning for proper maintenance measures, you can expect to see issues down the line. 

Consequences of Not Testing

Testing your API is just as important as implementing it. As a business, you must have clear standards for how you want your system to perform, and testing to ensure that your API consistently meets these standards is critical. 

We can keep emphasizing the importance of API testing but without providing any logic as to why, what good will that do? Here are 3 issues you can expect with a lack of API testing:

1. Unexpected Bugs: These usually come with their own set of several issues including failed tasks, incorrect data, and overall slow performance. As a user, this is highly frustrating and can detract users from your platform. 

2. Costs Down The Line: The sooner you can detect and mitigate issues with your API, the better off your system will be. When issues that arise reach a later stage, they often become far more costly and difficult to resolve.

3. Losing User's Trust: As we’ve said before, your users may rely on APIs to access your services. If they are suddenly unable to access those services, or if the system isn’t providing accurate information, this will hurt your company's image. 

An example we could say is similar to this is the recent Rogers outage, where over 12 million users were impacted. Of course, the cause was an anomaly but nonetheless, it goes to show how important your IT systems performance is for your customers.

Why Isn’t Everyone API Testing?

Clearly, there’s plenty that can go wrong which would make anyone question why API testing isn’t standard practice. Let’s make this clear, testing an API is not as simple as clicking a button; it’s one of the most difficult parts of quality testing in addition to software in general.

It requires knowledgeable developers who can allocate the necessary time and resources to provide accurate results. This is why some may not prioritize testing or do it at all, and in those cases, these are some of the benefits they’d be missing out on:

1. Quality Experience: The standards you’ve set out should not be compromised. Testing to make sure your API is consistently meeting your standards will benefit the user experience. Also, it shows consistency which will benefit the company's trust in the eyes of its users.

2. Platform Access Without UI: Whoever’s running QA testing on the platform will be able to access it without needing to use the application. As a result, this allows programmers to go in and detect bugs early as well as any other defects and fix them before users run into them.

3. Security Benefits: API testing can identify vulnerabilities in your security system and take the appropriate measures to solve them. In an age where IT systems are highly targeted, it’s critical to make sure your system is protected as much as possible.

Deciding to prioritize API testing is sure to give you an advantage when it comes to long-term success. However, acting in the best interest of your business will look different for everyone depending on the priorities.

The Takeaway

You’ll never see higher levels of success without consistently raising the bar for the way your business performs. Custom software development is a critical aspect of this journey as it allows businesses to outline, target, and meet their unique requirements.

Written By Ben Brown

—

ISU Corp is an award-winning software development company, with over 17 years of experience in multiple industries, providing cost-effective custom software development, technology management, and IT outsourcing.

Our unique owners’ mindset reduces development costs and fast-tracks timelines. We help craft the specifications of your project based on your company's needs, to produce the best ROI. Find out why startups, all the way to fortune 500 companies like General Electric, Heinz, and many others have trusted us with their projects. Contact us here.

E-Commerce in 2023: What Businesses Need to Prioritize to Succeed

Over the last decade, the rise of e-commerce has revolutionized mass consumer behaviour and the ideals of capitalism that drive it. As a result, what has been created is a landscape that everyone wants to enter but demands excellence to thrive in. 

Who’s Setting The Standard?

Companies like Amazon, Alibaba, Shein, and Apple have set the standard so high that newcomers must strive to achieve flawless performance in order to succeed long term. As you might’ve guessed, this requires a significant investment in the backend infrastructure of e-commerce platforms to keep up with the demands of the market.

Take a look at Microsoft— they’ve just recently put a few billion dollars into Chat GPT and are expecting to increase that investment threefold in the near future. This is a great example of why the top-performing companies have earned the position they’re in. They see the trends and evaluate how to best make a move to capitalize on them. 

What does it mean for your business? 

Are you looking to tap into the e-commerce sector? Maybe you’ve been in the space for a bit and are looking to ramp up progress. Whatever the case may be, you need to be aware of what’s trending and how to make it fit your business. For example, the mass appeal towards TikTok inspired other platforms to incorporate Reels which bring platforms dramatically more engagement. 

Here are 4 quick e-commerce trends that will heavily contribute to a platform's success in 2023:

• Mobile: Is your app just as easy to shop on and check out as your website? The amount of mobile users is significant in e-commerce, which means the experience needs to be seamless. For this reason, e-commerce companies tend to go with a mobile-first approach when designing their platform. We’ve referred to the mobile experience as a hot button in 2023 which is almost an understatement. It really is an upper hand for those who master it. 

• Post-Purchase Customer Experience: If you want consistent business, this has to be a priority. The sector is competitive and brand loyalty doesn’t exist when it comes to e-commerce. One of Amazon’s greatest strengths is how simple its return policy is, even though customers don’t typically buy with the intent of returning, the fact the solution is there is what sets them apart. 

• Social Commerce: Social media is a goldmine when it comes to marketing, especially for startups. Social commerce generates billions of dollars that are readily available to brands who strategize how to best position themselves. For example, being on multiple social platforms is great but not having sufficient content on those platforms, favouring certain platforms and neglecting others will hurt your brand this year. 

• Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR and AR): An emerging trend that the giants in the sector are using to enhance the shopping experience is VR and AR. For example, IKEA has The Place App which allows customers to see how furniture will look in their home before buying it. L'Oreal allows you to virtually try on makeup, Nike allows you to use VR to see how their products are made, etc. 

The Covid-19 pandemic proved that consumers get accustomed to technology fast and won’t easily compromise with a lesser option. This is why trillions of dollars were invested in IT during the pandemic, and the trend is expected to continue exponentially in the coming years. 

It may sound cliché, but the best way to get started when building an e-commerce platform is by prioritizing the customer experience. If you wouldn't want to shop on your platform, what makes you think anyone else would? An end-user mindset is a website architect's strongest asset and with consistent revision and innovation, the platform's chance at long-term success increases. 

The Takeaway

The “right way” to do something is never obvious nor is it a one-size-fits-all approach. It needs to follow a process of trial and error in the initial stages but once a solid foundation has been built, reward tends to follow.

The typical success rate for e-commerce sites is around 20% and the problem is seldom the product. It’s commonly a result of failing to consider the end user's needs and preferences during UI/UX development as well as when balancing the platform's front and back-end features. 

Don’t let your business become another statistic, consult with professionals who can guide you to long-term success. 

Written By Ben Brown

—

ISU Corp is an award-winning software development company, with over 17 years of experience in multiple industries, providing cost-effective custom software development, technology management, and IT outsourcing.

Our unique owners’ mindset reduces development costs and fast-tracks timelines. We help craft the specifications of your project based on your company's needs, to produce the best ROI. Find out why startups, all the way to fortune 500 companies like General Electric, Heinz, and many others have trusted us with their projects. Contact us here.

A Guide to Security Testing

Security is more important than ever, especially with so many online resources and applications. When developing an application, gathering information on security is a top priority for us at ISU Corp.

Our security audit is an analytical approach to measure the informative security assessment for your application. We will perform vulnerability scans, and carefully examine the system configuration and settings, and analyze the network and communication.

When analyzing your application, we take into account what's already been completed with the IT environment when we do an information security audit.

It’s challenging for businesses to stay ahead of the ever-evolving security threats. As a safeguard, it’s important to be prepared and have a Disaster Recovery Runbook in the event a breach occurs. Security hacks are stressful for everyone involved, but a DR runbook can help any IT team stay calm and organized.

Our goal is to understand your application’s information system deficiencies. To do this we will start off by verifying the security level of your Servers, Operating Systems & Databases, Business Applications, Software, and Network & Communications.

We will track any and all of the deficiencies that are found, and then we will come up with recommendations to improve the deficiencies.

By utilizing our testing services, you have the ability to move forward confidently knowing that your applications:

• Are protected from both known and unknown vulnerabilities

• The data for them is safe and difficult to hack

• Are in compliance with security regulations

Now, here is the security testing process:

At ISU Corp, our professional Web Application Security Testing Service is used to assist you in recognizing the vulnerabilities. The application testing is completed offsite for external faced web applications, but we will apply identical security properties for all applications that we develop.

Our security testing methodologies were discovered by the Open Web Application Security Project and they include the following processes:

• Information retrieval

• Arranged management testing

• Business logic testing

• Authentication and authorization testing

• Session management testing

• Data validation

• Denial of service testing

• Web services testing

• Ajax testing

Regardless of how diligent the testing processes are, new threats and attack vectors will always find a way into your software. Here at ISU Corp, we use our best efforts to put energy and resources into gathering the most recent knowledge for designing effective methods to optimize our security testing services.

We will test for:

• Injection

• Cross-site scripting (XSS)

• Broken authentication and session management

• Insecure direct object references

• Cross-Site request forgery (CSRF)

• Security misconfiguration

• Insecure cryptographic storage

• Failure to Restrict URL Access

• Insufficient transport layer protection

• Unvalidated redirects and forwards

At ISU Corp, we will also provide access to in-depth vulnerability assessments that closely examine every open port, host, and services that have access to the Web. The vulnerability tests will also map the network architecture to check that the network devices are protected from hacker attacks.

Reliant on what’s discovered in the process of the vulnerability test, we will determine and report your network’s security position.

Our diligent research teams at ISU Corp strive to validate the security of your websites prior to potential issues. Our goal is to be your trusted partner for all your web application testing and assessment requirements.

Reach out to one of our experts at ISU Corp to get started, or if you have any additional inquiries about security testing!