B2B/B2C applications and documents must be tested. However because there are a lot of standards, solutions, specific environments, and test needs, it is difficult to develop all testing tools (testbed) to cope with each of them. The testbed should be developed more rapidly and easier. In addition, the implemented testbed should be accommodated for various testing specifics. Therefore agility and efficiency of a test framework and its testbed are important. The proposed test framework, namely Agile Test Framework (ATF), consists of test suite design and its execution model.
For the agile test suite design, we proposed a two-layer test suite design: an abstract test suite and an executable test suite. The abstract test suite is designed in order to minimize a gap between a software vender and a testing engineer. It is recommended that a domain expert composes the abstract test suite to clarify its objective and scope. For the modularity design, the abstract test suite consists of a test assertion, a test procedure and a test environment. It enhances the reusability of scripts when a new test suite is developed. The abstract test suite is also designed independent of an execution model easier to read and understand for the testbed provider and the test user who should argue with each other to resolve interoperability problems at the test execution. On the other hand, the executable test suite is designed to be interpreted and processed by testbed. The executable test suite is independent of various specific standards because its test cases could be composed for various requirements, environment, and testing modes (testing harness). It makes the proposed ATF more efficient in B2B/B2C application/document testing. The proposed test framework accepts an ETSL test script as an executable test suite. It can accommodate test cases to various testing environments using event- driven design. The testing engineer could implement the executable test cases considering the abstract test cases.
A light-weighted reusable and reconfigurable testbed could be implemented on the base of the proposed agile execution model (AEM). AEM provides highly reusable modules and their interactions for rapidly forming a testbed. AEM consists of various test components and interfaces. The test components are divided by stationary and non-stationary test components. The stationary components can be reused without modification for any testing purposes and test needs, while non-stationary ones might be revised to cope with test specifics. ATF gives a discovery and deployment model for using test interface. That is, the testbed should search and configure a relevant instance module in the registry/repository.
The ATF testbed can be used for the conformance and interoperability testing harnesses that are representative testing approaches for B2B/B2C standards. We also proposed a novel interoperability test harness that makes up for the weak points in the existing test frameworks. The proposed test harness advances the IIC (KorBIT implementation) interoperability test harness for effective verification and debugging of interoperability problems between B2B applications. For this purpose, the testbed successively executes separated output- and input-conformance tests.
We developed a testbed for the IV&I project which is to enhance interoperability among the applications in the automobile industry. A single testing tool adapted ATF can cover with two different test needs: Information Mapping and RAMP messaging problems. That is possible by reconfigurable test components. Also we can reuse many existing scripts at the test suite development and can reuse many test components at the testbed implementation. In the view of the results so far achieved, ATF makes test suite and testbed implementation more rapidly and makes it possible to test various applications and documents based on diverse standard specifications.
In conclusion, the proposed test framework has strong points as listed:
- High reusability: Most of test materials (test cases and various test data) and test components can be reused. It minimizes the cost and efforts for developing a testbed.
- High extensibility: ATF testbed can test various applications and documents and be used for diverse standard specifications using the reconfiguration approach.
- High Efficiency: Because the abstract test case is designed user-friendly, participants in the testing can easily understand the test process and report. It assists them to catch interoperability problems of their applications/documents. As a result it minimizes the time and efforts necessary for debugging.
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