Automated testing with Selenium assures robust systems

To the untrained eye, the latest release of the Galaxy software is a long and technical list of 208 enhancements and 145 fixes of known issues, inherent to the development of a sophisticated analysis platform. But step back from the detail, and we can see a significant advance in the maturity of this global service. The enhancements heavily feature tests of the system’s robustness – code that is tasked with benchmarking new infrastructure and monitoring its performance to ensure users are getting the most out of their time spent computing. 

Software Engineer, Dr Nuwan Goonasekera, has championed the use of Selenium to test new infrastructure and deployments for Galaxy Australia for several years now. This suite of tools enables automatic testing of applications. Galaxy Australia makes use of Selenium to monitor user health of the service, by checking the time taken to perform various common actions that users need. By constantly testing the system, the team can monitor a custom dashboard that alerts them to any potential issues the instant they begin.

End-to-end testing is not just good software engineering practice, it should also be part of a holistic plan to measure scalability and monitor service quality that users experience day-to-day.

Dr Nuwan Goonasekera
Melbourne Bioinformatics, Galaxy Australia

Galaxy Australia’s testing and ongoing monitoring drives the constant improvements that underpin a professional service. Their modelling of the use of Selenium has resulted in the tool now appearing in the procedures of other Galaxy servers around the world. It featured heavily in the new global release of Galaxy 23.1, with the list of enhancements made to the new version including many mentions of Selenium code. 

After witnessing the value of Galaxy Australia’s usage of Selenium at a recent meeting for BioCommons partners, QCIF Software Engineer, Brigette Gonch, was keen to investigate how the tool might assist in her work on the Bioplatforms Australia’s Data Portal. Galaxy Australia’s move to a new data centre is currently using Selenium to confirm improved performance, and ensure that any kinks are ironed out before users are granted access to the new resources in November.