Solutions to controllability and observability problems in distributed testing.

Abstract

The objective of protocol testing is to confirm that a protocol implementation under test conforms to its specification. However, in protocol test architectures that utilize multiple remote testers in a distributed environment, this objective can be complicated by the fact that testers may encounter problems relating to controllability and observability during the application of a test sequence. Solutions in literature to these problems usually involve first generating a test sequence from the specification of an implementation under test, then inserting coordination messages or appending selected test subsequences that will allow the testers to solve the controllability and observability problems. This thesis proposes a method that uses a set of transformation rules to construct a directed graph from a given specification. A transition tour of this directed graph based on a rural Chinese postman tour will result in a test sequence with no potential for controllability or observability problems, and where the use of coordination messages is either minimized or, if possible, avoided altogether.