Architecture-based testing of service-oriented applications in distributed networks

Abstract

Testing of distributed service-oriented applications is more challenging than testing monolithic applications since these service-oriented applications have complex interactions between participant services executing in distributed networks. In testing of service-oriented applications, test engineers can observe test results only through a front service that handles request messages sent by test engineers. Message exchanges between participant services are hidden behind the front service and cannot be easily observed or controlled through the front service. For this reason, testing of service-oriented applications suffers from limited observability and controllability problem. This thesis proposes a new test method that is architecture-based and exploits architectural information of a service-oriented application. The proposed test method alleviates the limited observability and controllability problem by employing test architecture, thereby facilitating test execution and analysis through monitoring and controlling the hidden message exchanges. Our proposed method derives an interaction architecture from the composition specification of a service-oriented application. Test architectures can be designed from the derived interaction architecture by extending it with additional test elements. At the same time, architecture-neutral test scenarios are automatically generated from the test model that is constructed from the specification. Our method combines test architecture information with the architecture-neutral test scenarios to obtain architecture-enabled test scenarios under the selected test architectures. Finally, architecture-enabled test execution and analysis are conducted in the real network environment. The efficacy of the proposed method is demonstrated with an industrial case study, which shows that it is practical and effective for testing service-oriented applications. Even though our method increases an additional test generation effort owing t...