Testing in mobile settings

To address the testing of applications and services in mobile computing systems, we have first considered a fundamental conceptual problem: how to express interaction scenarios between mobile nodes? Scenarios are useful to represent various test artifacts (Figure 1), but existing languages such as UML sequence diagrams or Message Sequence Charts are not sufficient to account for mobile settings [1].

Figure 1: Role of scenarios from a testing perspective

We then proposed three extensions [2]:

  • the introduction of a spatial view using labeled graphs to describe the topological system
  • configurations, in the event view, configuration changes are introduced as global events and special
  • symbols are used to represent broadcast communication in a local vicinity.

We exemplified the introduction of these extensions into UML sequence diagrams.

Due to the spatial view, the analysis of test traces against scenarios now involves graph matching problems. We developed an algorithm to reason about sequences of graphs, allowing us to determine which physical nodes appearing in a trace can match the successive configuration patterns appearing in a scenario. The graph analysis can then be supplemented by an analysis of the ordering of communication events, which was exemplified by taking an automata-based semantics. The details of both the graph matching tool (GraphSeq) and the automata-based semantics can be found in a technical report [3].

Future work will investigate how to perform a realistic emulation of the mobile environment, and how to guide the retained scenarios in a context-aware manner. This will induce the development of a test platform that integrates a network simulator and a context controller. Contextual parameters, such as memory and processing capacity, will be taken into account both at the level of the scenario language and in the test platform by the context controller. 

Publications

[1] H. Waeselynck, Z. Micskei, M.D. N’Guyen, N. Rivière, “Mobile systems from a validation perspective: a case study”, Proc. 6th International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing (ISPDC 2007), IEEE CS Press, pp.85-92, Hagenberg (Autriche), July 2007.

[2] M. D. N’Guyen, H. Waeselynck, N. Rivière, “Testing mobile computing applications: toward a scenario language and tools”, Proc. 6th International Workshop on Dynamic Analysis (WODA 2008), ACM, pp. 29-35, Seattle (USA), July 2008.

[3] G. Huszerl and H. Waeselynck (Ed.), Refined design and testing framework, methodology and application results, Hidenets Deliverable D5.3, December 2008.

http://www.hidenets.aau.dk/Public+Deliverables

[4] M. D. N’Guyen, H. Waeselynck, N. Rivière, “GraphSeq: A graph matching tool for the extraction of mobility patterns”, To appear in Proc. 3rd International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST 2010), IEEE, Paris (France), April 2010.