Java Power Tools

Part V. Integration, Functional, Load, and Performance Testing

When Eeyore saw the pot, he became quite excited. “Why!” he said. “I believe my Balloon will just go into that Pot!”

“Oh, no, Eeyore,” said Pooh. “Balloons are much too big to go into Pots. What you do with a balloon is, you hold the balloon—”

“Not mine,” said Eeyore proudly. “Look, Piglet!” And as Piglet looked sorrowfully round, Eeyore picked the balloon up with his teeth, and placed it carefully in the pot; picked it out and put it on the ground; and then picked it up again and put it carefully back.

“So it does!” said Pooh. “It goes in!”

“So it does!” said Piglet. “And it comes out!”

“Doesn’t it?” said Eeyore. “It goes in and out like anything.”

“I’m very glad,” said Pooh happily, “that I thought of giving you a Useful Pot to put things in.”

“I’m very glad,” said Piglet happily, “that thought of giving you something to put in a Useful Pot.”

But Eeyore wasn’t listening. He was taking the balloon out, and putting it back again, as happy as could be….

—“Eeyore has a birthday,” Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne

Today’s software applications are composed of an increasingly large number of different components. In addition to the different layers and modules within your application, you often need to integrate with databases, external applications, mainframes, and more. It is essential that these parts fit together smoothly and correctly.

This is the realm of integration testing. Indeed, if unit tests are a vital part of the testing process, ...