API (REST/SOAP) Testing using JMeter with Real Examples

Explore what performance testing is and why it matters, and learn how to assess an application's behavior under varying loads and user counts to prevent crashes.

Invest early in performance testing to ensure robust, fast, and reliable applications under peak load, using tests on a separate replica environment, not production.

Explore techniques of performance testing, including volume, load, stress, and spike testing, to assess data and concurrent users' impact on bottlenecks, errors, and application behavior.

Explain what an API is and why access matters, use Google Maps API as an example, and contrast REST with SOAP, mentioning common methods like GET and POST.

Explore how APIs expose flight data from multiple airlines through public interfaces, enabling Expedia to fetch, compare prices, and display maps via Google Maps API for easy decision making.

Explore why API testing matters by validating functionality, behavior, and integration between APIs. Ensure data integrity and correct flow across applications to prevent impact on brands and user trust.

Explore HTTP commands like GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE, and see how they retrieve, send, add, or remove data within REST and SOAP contexts.

Understand HTTP protocols and the security layer SSL/TLS, and how these protocols govern transferring text, graphics, images, and media in web applications, informing API testing with JMeter.

JMeter, an open source Java-based tool, lets you simulate real-time multi-user traffic to test performance, observe response times across servers, and reduce testing costs.

Explore JMeter, a free, Java-based, cross-platform tool that requires no programming to start. Record scripts, test APIs across protocols, and analyze load with reports, dashboards, and distributed multi-thread testing.

Install java from Oracle, set up the jdk and jre on a 64‑bit system, configure environment variables and path, and verify with java -version to prepare for jmeter.

Install apache jmeter on Windows by downloading the zip, extracting it, and launching the batch file, with java version requirements and notes on api testing scripting.

Explore the JMeter architecture and setup, from the folder structure and bin scripts to running in UI mode or via batch and command line, with environment variables for distributed testing.

Explore thread group components in JMeter, including logic controllers, configure elements, timers, preprocessors, samplers, post-processors, assertions, and listeners, and learn how they control, prepare, delay, extract data, and visualize results.

Learn to create a REST GET script in JMeter by testing the Google Maps API, exploring requests, responses, and JSON data, with test plans, thread groups, and assertions.

Explore building a JMeter test plan for API testing using templates, variables, and thread group settings, with host, requests, and live graphs to analyze errors.

Create a custom JMeter test plan from scratch, configuring groups and requests, adding results listeners, and understanding memory considerations while preparing EPA testing plans and reusable templates.

Learn how thread groups power performance testing within a test plan by simulating users with ramp-up, loop counts, and scheduling to model real-world usage patterns.

Controllers in JMeter coordinate samplers and logic controllers to manage how and when requests are sent. They define the number of executions and the order of requests, per thread.

Discover how listeners in a JMeter script capture and display results as tree, table, graph, or log files, export data, and monitor latency, throughput, and pass/fail status.

Explore how controllers in JMeter manage the flow of requests, using samplers and logic controllers to control order and the number of executions within a thread group.

Explore the simple controller and other logic controllers in JMeter, and learn how they organize samplers and route Google Maps API requests within a thread group.

Demonstrate using a loop controller to repeat a maps api request in a JMeter thread group, showing how loop counts determine total executions.

Analyze how the random controller selects and executes requests for performance testing, compare it with the interleave and live controllers, using a Facebook-style example to illustrate load patterns.

Explore how to use the HTTP header manager in JMeter to craft real request headers per request, including content-type, charset UTF-8, cookies, and SOAP action for REST and SOAP testing.

Learn how parametrization in JMeter makes scripts dynamic by using variables and user defined variables, so a single change updates all requests.

Learn how to upload files to Google Drive via the Google Drive API, configure OAuth authorization, generate access and refresh tokens, and test requests in JMeter.

Explore posting data to an API and receiving a response, contrasting post with get in a JMeter test plan using parameters like country name and value.

Learn how to post files to the Google Drive API using simple upload for small files and multipart upload for metadata, including content-type and boundary details.

Continue building a Google Drive upload script with a multipart request, specify content-type and boundary, include uploaded by and file name metadata, and verify the updated drive shows the file.

Learn how to update a Google Drive file using the PUT method, reuse the POST request pattern, and change the file name to verify the update while handling authorization.

Update existing Google Drive content via API by copying the ID, building an update request, and verifying updated content on the server. Prepare for content deletion in the next class.

Learn how to delete a file using the Google Drive API, including the delete endpoint, request body alignment, and validating responses within a JMeter workflow.

Learn to delete a file via an API call, including the file id and body content, and verify the deletion in Google Drive, using post and delete methods.

Explore the difference between soap and rest, including soap envelopes and actions with headers, and how rest uses simpler requests and cheaper bandwidth.

Build a soap API test script in JMeter with the global weather API, covering request body, headers, content-length, soap action, and assertions; use user defined variables for the country name.

Learn to use the threadNum function in JMeter to identify the user running each request and analyze failures across multiple users.

Explore how the sampler name function in JMeter formats and identifies the active sampler across multiple thread groups using the dollar sign and underscores, enabling response assertion mapping.

Explore the counter function in jmeter, learn how to pass boolean parameters, configure per-thread counters, and use variables to track sampler and assertion results across runs.

Learn how to use the time function in JMeter to capture current time in milliseconds and in custom formats, and store results in variables for reuse across requests.

Learn to use the UUID function in JMeter to generate a unique identifier for each request, ensuring every request carries a different ID and hides random numbers.

Learn to retrieve the machine ip address and machine name with the machine ip and machine name functions, following exact case-sensitive names and consulting the help file for usage.

Learn to parameterize JMeter tests with CSV data by configuring a CSV data config, defining filename and encoding, and using variables while controlling recycling and thread sharing.