Selenium Architecture

What is Selenium?

For every successful software product run software testing is a must. Every business needs to deliver its products without any defects. Selenium is a widely used automation tool for testing because of the numerous advantages it has. Many testers across the globe prefer using selenium due to its simplicity, use, and availability. So what is Selenium? Why is it in demand?

As discussed Selenium is a tool used for the automation testing of web applications. It is a free source. It is not only a single tool but contains everything that an organization requires for testing, therefore it is ideally a suite of the software. The list of software makes it one of the best choices among testers. We will explore all the software in detail further in the article.

According to BusinessWire Selenium is the only tool that has delivered a humongous growth of approx 300 percent in terms of job posting over three years. The rate of adoption is highest in Selenium when compared to the other automation testing tools. As per Indeed, the average salary of Selenium testers in the United States ranges from $62000 to $100000/- Companies like Dell, Hitachi, Oracle, Tech Mahindra, and other tech giants regularly hire Selenium professionals.

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What is Selenium Architecture?

Selenium architecture refers to the structure of Selenium. The architecture comprises the following components.

• Selenium IDE
• Selenium RC
• Selenium WebDriver
• Selenium Grid

Selenium IDE:

IDE refers to Integrated Development Environment. Shinya kasatani from Japan initially developed Selenium IDE. It is a firefox plugin that permits the users (developers) to record and also playback the scripts. One of the biggest advantages of Selenium IDE is that no knowledge of programming languages is required. Knowing Hyper Text Markup Language and DOM would be enough. Since it is simple to use many testers across the world used it as a prototyping tool.

Selenium RC:

RC refers to Remote control. It is also referred to as Selenium 1 since it was the first foremost testing framework. It also was the automation testing tool that was preferred by testers for a very long period. The Selenium RC uses Javascript as its base for automation. It also supports various languages such as python, Ruby, PHP, Java, and C#. Most of the web browsers available in the market support Selenium Remote control.

Please note: The use of Selenium RC is officially deprecated.

Selenium WebDriver:

It refers to an automation framework that allows users to automate their actions using modern-age web browsers. It also assists users to communicate with all browsers via a set of open-source Application programming interfaces. A browser-centric drive facilitates the implementation of the Selenium WebDriver. Windows, Solaris, Linux, and Mac OS are some of the operating systems that are supported by Selenium WebDriver. Selenium WebDriver support various programming language such as Java, Perl, Ruby, PHP, and also Javascript. Web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, and Safari are also supported by WebDriver of Selenium. The architecture of the Selenium Webdriver comprises of Selenium client Library, Browsers, JSON Wire Protocol, and Browsers drivers.

Selenium Grid:

Selenium Grid works together when clubbed with Selenium Remote control ( RC). It helps in running the test parallel on the machines against the browser respectively. The working mechanism of the Selenium Grid depends on the operating system and the browsers that are supported by the whole framework. selenium Grid can run many tests parallel at the same time with different machines and browsers since most of the browsers and operating systems in the market are supported by Selenium.

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Features of Selenium

Selenium is the most preferred choice for the testers because of  its features which are as follows:

1) Cross-Browser Testing: 

This is one of the best features for considering using Selenium. It allows its users to conduct tests on the website with scripts that are the same as the codes using a different browser. It refers to the ability of the web application or the web browser to function on different operating systems and different browsers.

2) Parallel testing:

As the word parallel implies a user can simultaneously run tests on different devices, and also browsers to reduce the test timing. It is a test automation method where the test cases are run simultaneously via multiple combinations of devices, browsers, and operating systems. 

3) Modern technology support:

This feature of Selenium enables its users to test all the different types of applications. There is no restraint because of the technology that is used in the applications.

4) Web Page Automation: 

Selenium is considered to be one of the powerful tools for controlling any web browser via the program.  It is compatible with most of the browsers in the market. The user can control day-to-day tasks for instance Tweets, Texting on WhatsApp, etc. The limitations are endless for automation in Selenium. Even the web pages where the content varies and is dependent on the user’s actions can be automated using Selenium.

Components of Selenium Architecture

The components of Selenium Architecture are as follows:

1. Selenium Client Library:

Various libraries such as Java, Python, and Java are supported by Selenium. The developers have created the language bindings that permit Selenium to support numerous languages. You can also visit the official website to know more about the Selenium libraries. 

2. JSON WIRE Protocol:

JSON refers to Javascript Object Notation. It facilitates transferring of the data between the client and the server on the web.  It is a REST API that helps in transferring the server between the HTTP server.  All the BrowserDriver for instance ChromeDriver, Firefox driver, and others have their HTTP server.

3. Browser: 

A browser is ideally a software that allows users to find and also view information on the internet.  It interprets all the HTML tags in documents that are downloaded and format the data which is displayed as per the set referring to the standard of the style rules.

4. Browser Drivers:

Every browser has its browser driver.  It communicates with its browser without letting anyone know about the internal logic of the functionality of the browser. When a driver receives any command, then the same command will be executed on the corresponding browser and the same response will then go back in the form of a Hypertext Transfer protocol response.

So you now know the features and components of Selenium. Let us further understand what its advantages and disadvantages are!

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Advantages of Selenium WebDriver Architecture

• Selenium Webdriver Architecture is an open-source framework that supports various languages and is compatible with numerous operating systems.
• It also supports integration with Jenkins for continuous integration and Continuous delivery purposes.
•  For Code compilation,  the selenium web driver architecture can be integrated with frameworks like ANT and Maven.
• It is designed in a way that it can support both parallel testing and cross-browser testing.
• It can be integrated with TestNG, a testing framework to improve reporting and automation testing.
• The selenium webdriver architecture allows us to apply user gestures such as the cursor, mouse, and the keyboard actions like click and then hold, drag and drop, click, and double click.
• It also helps speed up the test cycles by allowing the user to write the test scripts using the application's language for coding.
• The selenium architecture allows the users to simulate the interactions of the web browser by selecting the browser’s front and also back buttons.
• The selenium does not require any server installation before initiating testing and also provides interaction of the code on the web services directly.

Disadvantages of Selenium WebDriver

• The user cannot test window applications with the help of selenium WebDriver as it only works with web applications.
• The automation of both the audio elements and video is also not possible with Selenium.
• The architecture of Selenium does not have its inbuilt feature for reporting, it depends on frameworks of the third-party such as Cucumber and TestNG.
• It is not designed to handle web elements that are dynamic accurately thereby affecting the test results.
• Barcodes, test cases, and captcha involving fingerprints do not get automated with the use of Selenium.
• The requisite of Selenium is to have basic knowledge of the programming languages, thereby making the authoring of the test script slightly hard.
• It also cannot handle frames.
• The user cannot perform tasks of test management whereas tools like QTP (Quick Test Professional) and UFT (Unified Functional Testing) support the ALM ( Application Lifecycle Management) integration.

Frequently asked Selenium Interview Questions and Answers !!

Conclusion

Hope you have now understood the technology of Selenium, its importance, features, and also components. Selenium is a gamut of software ideally referred to as Selenium suite. Selenium WebDriver is the major component of the Selenium suite.  It can be called the brain of Selenium. Hence, if you want to make your career in testing, Understanding Selenium is a must. Selenium is the most preferred choice for organizations in automation testing. Selenium tester, Selenium Test analyst, Mobile testing lead, and Selenium Automation Engineer are some of the profiles that are in demand in Selenium. To explore all the career opportunities visit HKR training, today!  A one-stop solution to all your career guidance, growth, and learning. For any queries please drop a message in the comment section.

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