Test development for communication protocols: towards automation

• Published in: Computer networks (1999) Vol. 31; no. 17; pp. 1835 - 1872
• Main Authors: Dssouli, R., Saleh, K., Aboulhamid, E., En-Nouaary, A., Bourhfir, C.
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 07.06.1999; Elsevier Science; Elsevier Sequoia S.A
• Subjects: Access methods and protocols, osi model; Applied sciences; Automation; Communication; Communications; Distributed processing; Distributed testing; Exact sciences and technology; Finite state machine; ISO standard test architectures; Message Sequence Charts; Networks; Protocol; Protocol conformance testing; Protocol engineering; Software quality; Software testing; Specifications and Description Language; Studies; Systems analysis; Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Teleprocessing networks. Isdn; Test generation; Testing; ISO standard test architectures; Software testing; Protocol conformance testing; Distributed testing; Finite state machine; Protocol engineering; Test generation; Automation; Software tool; Computer network; Test; Transmission protocol; ISO standard; Distributed system; Test construction; Modeling; Automatic test generation
• ISSN: 1389-1286; 1872-7069
• DOI: 10.1016/S1389-1286(99)00063-8

In this paper we give an introduction to methods and tools for testing communication protocols and distributed systems. In this context, we try to answer the following questions: Why are we testing? What are we testing? Against what are we testing?... We present the different approaches of test automation and explain the industrial point of view (automatic test execution) and the research point of view (automatic test generation). The complete automation of the testing process requires the use of formal methods for providing a model of the required system behavior. We show the importance of modelling the aspects to be tested (the right model for the right problem!) and point out the different aspects of interest (control, data, time and communication). We present the problem of testing based on models, in the form of finite state machines (FSMs), extended FSMs, timed FSMs and communicating FSMs, and give an overview of the proposed solutions and their limitations. Finally, we present our own experience in automatic test generation based on SDL specifications, and discuss some related work and existing tools.