An Integrated Strategy for Testing User-Oriented Software Systems

本研究发展一个整合策略，以有效地测试大量使用者存取的泛在软体系统，例如支援网际网路与万维网（WWW）的软体系统，从使用者的角度来确保其令人满意的效能与可靠性。该战略包括三个重要组成部分：1.开发一套高层次的操作简介，列举软件支持的主要功能以及目标用户使用这些功能的频率，并按相关用户功能分组。针对上述每个高层功能组，构建了基于马尔可夫链的模型，对高层操作进行穷尽性测试，对重要的底层实现进行选择性测试，并对测试结果进行分析，找出系统瓶颈，提高系统可靠性.上述关键部件的可靠性可以通过传统的测试技术或其他质量保证技术来保证。这项研究将涉及工业合作伙伴，包括IBM，北电网络和洛克希德马丁航空公司，结果验证，软件工具支持和未来的部署。

This research develops an integrated strategy for the effectivetesting of ubiquitous software systems accessed by the massive userpopulation, such as those used to support the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW),to ensure their satisfactory performance and reliability from the users'perspective. This strategy includes three important components:1. Development of a set of high-level operational profiles (OPs),which enumerates major functions to be supported by a software and theirusage frequencies by target users, organized in groups of related userfunctions.2. For each high-level function group above, a Markov chain basedmodel is constructed to exhaustively test high-level operations andselectively test important low-level implementations, with the testing resultsanalyzed to identify system bottlenecks for reliability improvement.3. Reliability of the critical parts identified above can be assuredusing traditional testing techniques or other quality assurance techniques. This research will involve industrial partners, including IBM, Nortel Networks, and Lockheed-Martin Aeronautics, for result validation, software tool support, and future deployment.