A Systematic Review on Microservice Testing

Abstract

Microservices have emerged to change software architecture into a style of loosely coupled facilities cooperating via a lightweight way. This architecture makes a more scalable and resilient artifact that is easier to evolve and deploy. However, how can we ensure that microservices are defect-free and satisfy expected behaviors? Like other software styles, microservices must be tested in various ways. Employing heterogeneous platforms in microservice development and microservices characteristics, such as scalability and resiliency demand different test approaches from other software applications. This paper produces a systematic literature review on articles published from 2011 on microservice testing. Of the 98 relevant studies found in the literature, 35 have been included in this survey. Primary studies have been summarized by their novelty, benefits, and gaps. Moreover, they are compared in terms of their techniques, outcomes, and evaluations. Studying the current test method’s limitations identifies open problems discussed during the paper. Results of this study identify the current achievements and future possible directions in the microservice testing domain. This survey finds resiliency testing and finding abnormal components in a production environment as the most common approaches for testing and validating microservice integrations and behavior. However, there is still room for generalizing fault injection methods and addressing microservice-specific features in test approaches.