35264175
Formal verification and validation for e-commerce: theory and best practices
Abstract In this paper, we describe a formal, model-driven, CORBA-based approach to developing and testing e-commerce systems. We indicate advantages and limitations of formal verification techniques using the Specification and Description Language (SDL), and relate the CORBA-based distributed object architecture to standard test methods and TTCN, the international standard test language. Finally, we enumerate industrial challenges and best practices at one of the electronic commerce software test organizations in IBM, and suggest a strategy for adapting formal test methods to the evolving industrial e-commerce test process.
8484723
Effective test metrics for test strategy evolution
How to measure a test process is a required competence for an effective software test manager. Effective test process measurement is essential for designing, evaluating and managing a cost-effective test strategy. Although some existing research has proposed many metrics for these purposes, most of those metrics are ignored or used individually. This paper summarizes a test process measurement pilot project of the IBM Electronic Commerce Development (ECD) test teams, and analyzes the effectiveness of using a "metric set" of complementary metrics for cost, time, and quality to measure the quality of test process based on the results of our project. Details are given for a "fictitious" project in order to explain the detailed considerations that go into adopting a cost-effective metric strategy. Further discussions about implementation problems, test wisdom learned in the project, and cost-effectiveness of the measurement activities and metrics are also presented. We conclude with suggestions for extensions of the work into the area of real-time, in-phase, in-process metrics.
16186547
Specification-based regression test selection with risk analysis
Regression testing is essential to ensure software quality. The test team applies a regression test suite to ensure that new or modified features do not regress (make worse) existing features. Although existing research has addressed many problems and put forward solutions, most regression test techniques are code-based. Code-based regression test selection is good for unit testing, but it has a scalability problem. When the size of the subject under test grows, it becomes hard to manage all the information and to create corresponding traceability matrices. In this paper, we describe a specification-based method for regression test selection.The basic model we use for describing requirements based on customer features or behaviors is the activity diagram, which is a notation of the Unified Modeling Language (UML). A process for identifying the affected test cases is presented. To summarize our approach, we select two kinds of regression tests: i) Targeted Tests, which ensure that important current customer features are still supported adequately in the new release and ii) Safety Tests, which are risk-directed, and ensure that potential problem areas are properly handled. Our test selection technique will be based on a practical risk analysis model.
16804055
SCAN: A Dynamic, Scalable, and Efficient Content Distribution Network
We present SCAN, the Scalable Content Access Network. SCAN combines dynamic replica placement with a self-organizing application-level multicast tree to meet client QoS and server resource constraints. It utilizes an underlying distributed object routing and location system (DOLR) as an essential component.Sim ulation results on both flash-crowd-like synthetic workloads and realWeb server traces show that SCAN deploys close to an optimal number of replicas, achieves good load balance, and incurs a small delay and bandwidth penalty for update multicast relative to static replica placement on IP multicast. We envision that SCAN could enhance a number of different applications, such as content distribution and peer-to-peer file sharing.
18395542
Adaptive Web Services Testing
Web services (WS) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) present a set of unique testing challenges. As services are distributed, it is necessary to test them using a distributed architecture. Furthermore, as these services may keep on changing, testing needs to be adaptive. This paper proposes an adaptive testing framework which can continuously learn and improve the built-in test strategies. The framework allows different test cases to be selected based on the recent test results. The framework also has a windowing mechanism to evaluate and select test cases.
17244811
Cooperative and group testing in verification of dynamic composite Web services
Verifying Web services (WS) in a dynamic Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is challenging because new services can be composed at runtime using existing WS. Furthermore, in a composite service, any component can be dynamically replaced during execution if the component fails. Another challenge is that the testing is time critical because verification must be conducted at runtime and in real time. We compare and contrast traditional software testing and WS testing techniques and propose a WS group testing technique to test composite services. The group testing technique also has the ability to evaluate the test scripts, automatically establish the oracle of the each test script, and identify faulty WS in a failed composite WS.
5453537
Testability of Software in Service-Oriented Architecture
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a system architecture in which a collection of loosely coupled services communicate with each other using standard interfaces and message-exchanging protocols. As an emerging technology in software development, the SOA presents a new paradigm, and it affects the entire software development cycle including analysis, specification, design, implementation, verification, validation, maintenance and evaluation. This paper proposes several testability evaluation criteria for SOA software, which serves as a reference for both service providers and application builders to evaluate the test support to SOA software. The proposed evaluation criteria are illustrated in a stock-trading case study
12956058
Identifying meaningful return information for XML keyword search
Keyword search enables web users to easily access XML data without the need to learn a structured query language and to study possibly complex data schemas. Existing work has addressed the problem of selecting qualified data nodes that match keywords and connecting them in a meaningful way, in the spirit of inferring a where clause in XQuery. However, how to infer the return clause for keyword search is an open problem.
 To address this challenge, we present an XML keyword search engine, XSeek, to infer the semantics of the search and identify return nodes effectively. XSeek recognizes possible entities and attributes inherently represented in the data. It also distinguishes between search predicates and return specifications in the keywords. Then based on the analysis of both XML data structures and keyword match patterns, XSeek generates return nodes. Extensive experimental studies show the effectiveness of XSeek.