International Journal of Science, Engineering and TechnologyAuthors: Sriram Ghanta
Abstract: Event-driven microservices introduce fundamental challenges for automated testing due to asynchronous execution, eventual consistency, and non-deterministic message flows across distributed components. This study addresses the problem of achieving reliable system-level validation in such architectures, where traditional integration testing approaches often produce flaky results and limited diagnostic insight. The purpose of this research is to design and evaluate a reproducible testing strategy that enables deterministic, end-to-end verification of event-driven microservices using containerized environments. The study adopts a mixed-method approach, combining quantitative analysis of test stability, failure reproducibility, and defect detection rates with qualitative assessment of test diagnosability and developer feedback. A structured test architecture is proposed in which ephemeral containerized dependencies are orchestrated alongside services under test, enabling controlled event injection, consistent state initialization, and repeatable execution. Empirical results demonstrate significant reductions in non-deterministic test failures, improved fault localization, and higher confidence in validating asynchronous service interactions. The study contributes to a system-level testing framework that bridges the gap between unit-level validation and production behavior, offering practical guidance for designing robust test pipelines for distributed systems. The findings underscore the strategic value of reproducible containerized testing as both an engineering discipline and a research contribution, with implications for advancing test reliability, accelerating delivery, and strengthening the empirical foundations of event-driven microservice validation.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18084378
