Simulation-based test adequacy criteria for distributed systems

  • Authors:

  • Matthew J. Rutherford;Antonio Carzaniga;Alexander L. Wolf

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado;University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado and University of Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland;University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado and University of Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 14th ACM SIGSOFT international symposium on Foundations of software engineering
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

Developers of distributed systems routinely construct discrete-event simulations to help understand and evaluate the behavior of inter-component protocols. Simulations are abstract models of systems and their environments, capturing basic algorithmic functionality at the same time as they focus attention on properties critical to distribution, including topology, timing, bandwidth, and overall scalability. We claim that simulations can be treated as a form of specification, and thereby used within a specification-based testing regime to provide developers with a rich new basis for defining and applying system-level test adequacy criteria. We describe a framework for evaluating distributed system test adequacy criteria, and demonstrate our approach on simulations and implementations of three distributed systems, including DNS, the Domain Name System.