Assuring the quality of APIs should be a core part of digital transformation as their importance grows along with our technological dependence. Proper planning and execution of API testing provides major benefits.

Humanity is currently facing one of the biggest challenges of this century. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused big changes in the way we live today. However, in comparison with similar historical events, humanity is using both technology and data as key elements in the fight against this virus. International health organizations, governments, biopharmaceuticals and technology companies can track and process information from isolated locations to densely populated cities, and detect strange or anomalous health data patterns. But there is a data disconnect among the different actors in this crucial fight, and the situation becomes critical when we need to make potentially life-saving decisions based on this information. One key trend we have identified is the ability to “Connect with Digital Partners” to improve collaboration and data sharing across an expansive digital ecosystem.

More than ever, the life sciences industry requires digital transformation. Most agree that organizations should be sharing information. The exchange and processing of data presents many regulatory, security and technological challenges. One software architectural response to these challenges is called microservices – an approach that structures an application as a collection of services. These services can be consumed through what is known as an Application Programming Interfaces or API, which allow organizations to connect and share critical information. APIs are an essential communication bridge between what information consumer can see or manipulate, and the internal functions that software provides. It is easy to see why the importance of quality assurance for microservices has grown significantly, sparking companies to invest in software testing and specifically API Testing.

Before the pandemic, the global market size for the API testing was around $384.3M in 2016 with a growing projection of $1.1B by 2022. Now, life sciences and healthcare organizations (private and public) may move even faster so they can have better integrated global healthcare systems and data. Increasingly, companies are investing in testing tools for API functionality, performance and security. This includes platform providers, services, third-party integrators and cloud solutions. APIs also enable businesses across industries to monetize their services by exposing their APIs to the external marketplace.

Assuring the quality of APIs should be a core part of digital transformation as their importance grows along with our technological dependence. Proper planning and execution of API testing provides three major benefits:

  • Reduce Failures. Thorough API testing will provide a better and more robust development process. Teams will also benefit in the long-term, increasing product quality while decreasing the number of potential future issues.
  • Reveal Issues. You will uncover issues and risks in the other parts of the architecture (infrastructure, microservices, network, applications, data and more).
  • Reusability. Implement API testing early in your software development and reuse API tests across the development lifecycle to facilitate collaboration, provide more accurate results and increase speed to market.

So, it is clear that API testing leads to better quality software products that help life sciences and healthcare organizations improve their product and services with excellent reliability, security and performance. But when data can change the world, let’s make sure we get it right!