SOAPSonar's fundamental testing unit is a test case. Normally, test cases are organized into suites; however, SOAPSonar's project tree view allows you to work with test cases in a sort of staging area. Test cases appear as nodes in the tree, attached to the parent node of WSDL-based Web service to which they apply. You can craft as many test cases against a given WSDL as you wish. Once you have a test case that has been verified and deemed ready, it can be moved into a test suite.

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SOAPSonar operates in one of several modes. You choose the Current mode from a menu selection, and typically, you run SOAPSonar in QA mode, which provides functional testing. However, if you switch to Performance mode, SOAPSonar's load-testing features are enabled. You can define multiple virtual clients and configure them to execute tests against target Web services. SOAPSonar can also exercise a Web service's resilience to security attacks, using a patent-pending XSD Mutation technology. XSD Mutation modifies an outgoing SOAP request in ways that expose the Web service to known assaults such as SQL injection, XML bombs, and so on.

Although SOAPSonar is, in accordance with its name, primarily a SOAP-testing application, it can test REST (Representational State Transfer)-style Web service interfaces as well. For a given REST-style test case, you can enter comma-separated name-value pairs that the tool assembles into the request URL. You can also use SOAPSonar's entire range of input data creation capabilities to generate input values for the request, giving you the ability to craft as rich a set of REST-style tests as SOAP-style tests.

Once your army of tests is created, you can automate their execution, provided you purchase the additional APC License Component. This component adds features to the standard SOAPSonar package that include a command-line interface for integrating test scripts with the Windows Task Scheduler.

There is also a free edition of SOAPSonar: Personal Edition. It lacks features such as WS-Security validation, performance testing, and vulnerability testing. A comparison between the Personal Edition and the Enterprise Edition is available at the company's Web site.

SOAPsonar presents itself as the critical tool you need to fulfill Crosscheck Networks' vision of a Web service testing way of life: the “four pillars of SOA deployment diagnostics.” There's the functional pillar: verifying a given request produces the correct response and that a Web service fulfills its design requirements. Second is performance: measuring a Web service’s throughput and response times. Third, compliance: verification of adherence to recognized standards. Last is vulnerability: ensuring that the Web service is tolerant of and resistant to malformed requests. This is a fine collection of Web service testing principles, and SOAPSonar does an admirable job of upholding them.

iTKO LISA 3.6e
LISA's learning curve is smooth and easy. The tool imposes a cyclic test development process. Create a new test case, and LISA builds a test structure consisting of skeletal test steps that act like bookends – one is the start step, the other is the end step. Import a WSDL through the Web Service Step Wizard, and you're handed a list of that WSDL's Web methods. Select a method to work on, and the wizard opens an object editor to supply input data, simultaneously adding a new step between the bookends. Enter test data for the request, then submit the request to the Web service and see if what comes back looks right. If not, go back, tweak the step (or correct the Web service method), and try again. There are more details to this, of course – compliance testing, for one, but LISA supports that as well.