Accelerate RPA Development with Service Virtualization

Organizations often need rapid deployment of bots to automate their business processes and go-to-market initiatives. Speedy bot deployment enables firms to accelerate their processes, improve accuracy, deliver greater value, and enhance their market position.

The success of process automation involving multiple systems of record requires technology and process specialists with diverse skills. Along with skills and resources, it takes time, effort, and investments for a successful rollout.

RPA enthusiasts are always on the lookout for newer methodologies and processes to shave time off their sprints and rapidly deliver maximum value. Thanks to Bridgenext’s (former Emtec Digital) innovation team, they need look no further! We have developed an accelerator that empowers development teams to deploy bots with increased speed, precision, and quality.

Where the Challenge Lies: Delayed RPA Development

Unavailability of APIs and integrations for all systems in play

As part of process automation, bots need to interact with various enterprise systems such as ERP, CRM, HRM, and SCM. Often, getting access to these enterprise systems/APIs can be challenging, causing delays in the bot development process. Also, to address corner cases and negative scenarios, developers need a lot of data in the “System of Record” which isn’t always easily available. Typically, this data originates in upstream systems and flows into the “System of Record” after going through various approvals and rules. Generating data in the source systems can be tricky and time-consuming and this can cause additional delays in the overall development process.

The Solution: Service Virtualization

In computing terms, virtualization refers to the act of creating a virtual version of something, including virtual computer hardware platforms, storage devices, and computer network resources.

Taking virtualization a step further, Service Virtualization is the process of creating mockups of APIs or required services with desired features to enable multiple teams to continue their respective tasks without hassle or interruption. It uses mock data/dummy APIs to get a head start on development that can later be switched over to the actual APIs, once those are developed.

Service virtualization ensures the application’s components integrate early in the development cycle, for significant time and cost savings and improved application quality. Some of the other benefits offered by service virtualization are-

• Considerable increase in test rates, with more than a quarter of companies doubling their test execution rates.
• More than a third of companies reduced their test cycle times by at least 50 percent.
• Nearly half of respondents saw a reduction of total defects of more than 40 percent.

Service Virtualization for RPA Development

Today’s fast-paced world demands “faster time to production” for rapid digital transformation and enhanced ROI. Stakeholders are on a constant lookout for ways to accelerate their enterprise software development process. At Bridgenext, we apply the concept of the “Software Factory Model” to RPA to accelerate the development of bots using predefined standards, accelerators, and re-usable components. Using this approach, we deliver bots in 4-6 weeks by optimizing the development process to achieve significant improvements in the quality of the bots we deliver without compromising on the business objectives.

Bridgenext’s Accelerator and Service Virtualization Tool

At Bridgenext, we utilize an internal accelerator for “Service Virtualization” to deliver quality bots on an accelerated timeframe. Service virtualizations simulate the behavior of select components such as REST APIs, Web Services, and Databases within heterogeneous component-based, service-oriented / Microservice-based applications. This service allows rapid creation of API stubs and simulates the behavior, data, and performance characteristics of real services to create efficient development and test environments.

Benefits of Service Virtualization: Enhanced Productivity, Accelerated Development, Resilient Bots

• Allows developers to work in parallel on different parts of the bot
• Accelerates testing cycles by reducing dependency on external/internal services
• Facilitates test edge cases and negative scenarios without changing the “System of Record”
• Reproduces production bugs with ease
• Creates less dependency on infrastructure for non-production environments
• Addresses the concern of calling third party services during performance/load tests

Business Drivers

• Faster time to production
• Lower cost of development
• Enhanced quality of code and testing

In deploying RPA projects using Service Virtualization, we have observed several advantages –

• 60% of development time saved by using mock APIs and databases instead of waiting for actual application resources
• 30% of post-production enhancements / fixes resolved
• Bot development can be continued by leveraging mock APIs 100% independent of production data
• 100% success rate conducting Root Cause Analysis for bot failures

Do you wish to accelerate bot creation for automating and optimizing core business processes? Contact our RPA experts, today!

Source: https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3087717/market-guide-for-api-testing-and-service-virtualization