Testing & Monitoring Web Services Using soapUI in NetBeans IDE

The soapUI Plugin adds a powerful SOAP Monitor to NetBeans IDE 6.1, allowing users to capture and perform SOAP traffic analysis between an existing client and a server. Test cases and mock services can be created easily using the captured traffic.

To launch the SOAP Monitor, right click on the Web Services Test node in the project view, and invoke the "Launch SOAP Monitor" action. This shows the following dialog:

Select the service to be monitored and appropriate port to redirect traffic, and click OK. This opens the SOAP Monitor. Now modify your web service clients to use the "Tunnel on Port" and you will see SOAP traffic on the monitor.

HTTP headers and SOAP attachments can also be monitored in the display.

Validating WS-I Compliance

The soapUI tool can validate WSDL files and/or SOAP messages against the WS-Interoperability (WS-I) specification.

To set up the soapUI plugin for NetBeans IDE to perform WS-I validation, first download the Java version of the Interoperability Testing Tool from the WS-I.org Deliverables page and unpack it. Create a WSI_HOME environment variable pointing to the downloaded and unzipped wsi-test-tools folder. Then open the IDE and navigate to Tools > soapUI > Preferences. Open the WS-I Settings tab and, in the Tool Location field, enter the location of the tool folder (identical to WSI_HOME). Select other options according to your preferences and click OK.

To validate WSDL files, right-click the binding node in the Web Service Tests node and select Check WS-I Compliance.

To validate SOAP messages, first monitor a SOAP request and response. Right-click in the response window and select Check WS-I Compliance.

Each WS-I report opens in its own tab. The report is saved automatically if you set a location to save reports in the soapUI preferences. You can also save the report manually by clicking the Save icon above the body of the report.

You can see the test configuration used to generate the test report in the Config tab. SOAP message test reports also have a Log tab, which is an XML log of the request and response SOAP exchange.

Resources

• soapUI web site (http://www.soapui.org/)
• soapUI Feature Overview (http://www.soapui.org/features.html)
• soapUI NetBeans IDE Plugin (http://www.soapui.org/netbeans/index.html)
• WS-I Testing Tools downloads (http://www.ws-i.org/deliverables/workinggroup.aspx?wg=testingtools)