Mohammad F. J. Klaib

A Tree Based Strategy for Test Data Generation and Cost Calculation for Uniform and Non-Uniform Parametric Values

Software testing is a very important phase of software development to ensure that the developed system is reliable. Due to huge number of possible combinations involved in testing and the limitation in the time and resources, it is usually too expensive and sometimes impossible to test systems exhaustively. To reduce the number of test cases to an acceptable level, combinatorial software interaction testing has been suggested and used by many researchers in the software testing field. It is also reported in literature that pairwise (2-way) combinatorial interaction testing can detect most of the software faults. In this paper we propose a new strategy for test data generation, a Tree Based Test Case Generation and Cost Calculation strategy (TBGCC) that supports uniform and non-uniform values, for input parameters (i.e. parameters with same and different number of values). Our strategy is distinct from others work since we include only the test cases which covers the maximum number of pairs in the covering array at every iteration. Additionally, the whole set of test cases will be checked as one block at every iteration only until the covering array is covered. Other strategies check each test case (N-1) times, where N is the maximum number of the input parameters. A detail description of the tree generation strategy, the iterative cost calculation strategy and effecient empirical results are presented.

A Random search based effective algorithm for pairwise test data generation

Testing is a very important task to build error free software. As the resources and time to market is limited for a software product, it is impossible to perform exhaustive test i.e., to test all combinations of input data. To reduce the number of test cases in an acceptable level, it is preferable to use higher interaction level (t way, where t ≥ 2). Pairwise (2-way or t = 2) interaction can find most of the software faults. This paper proposes an effective random search based pairwise test data generation algorithm named R2Way to optimize the number of test cases. Java program has been used to test the performance of the algorithm. The algorithm is able to support both uniform and non-uniform values effectively with performance better than the existing algorithms/tools in terms of number of generated test cases and time consumption.

A Parallel Tree Based Strategy for Test Data Generation and Cost Calculation for Pairwise Combinatorial Interaction Testing

Software testing is a very important phase of the software development cycle which ensures that the system developed is reliable and acceptable. Optimizing the test suite size of software eliminates the unnecessary cost and resources that are involved in testing. Sometimes it is not possible to exhaustively test any system due to huge number of test cases. In order to test any system and make it acceptable, combinatorial software interaction testing has been used in several fields. Investigations have concluded that most of the software faults could be identified by pairwise combinatorial interaction testing. Researchers have applied parallel algorithms to various combinatorial optimisation problems and have succeeded in significant time reduction in solving the problems. Large and/or computationally expensive optimization problems sometimes require parallel or high-performance computing systems to achieve reasonable running times.

Neighbour Replica Transaction Failure Framework in Data Grid

Significant and urgent requirement to obtain solutions to manage, distribute and access large sets of raw and processed data efficiently and effectively in the emerging distributed systems such as the data grid. Data grid deals with the efficient management, placement and replication of large amounts of data. Nowadays, replication in distributed environment receives particular attention for providing efficient access to data, fault tolerance and enhance the performance of the system. This paper presents the new Neighbour Replica Transaction Failure Framework (NRTFF) in data grid. We address how to build reliable system for managing transaction on Neighbour Replication Data Grid (NRDG) to maintain data availability, fault tolerance and at the same time avoid the deadlock. The result shows that managing transactions on NRDG through the proposed NRTFF provides fault tolerance capabilities that allow to withstand failure both in handling quorum locking and the transaction execution.

Development of ROWA-MSTS in Distributed Systems Environment

Replication in distributed environment has become increasingly popular due to its high degree of availability, fault tolerance and enhance the performance of a system. These advantages of replication are important because it enables organizations to provide users with access to current data where and when user needed at anytime or anywhere, even if the users are geographically remote. However, this way of data organization introduces low data consistency among replicas when changes are made during transactions. Therefore, a system to monitor data replication in distributed system environment arises. Read-One-Write- All Monitoring Synchronization Transaction System (ROWA-MSTS) has been developed to solve this problem. By using this system, it helps to monitor the replicated data distribution over multiple sites while maintaining the data consistency.

Failure Semantic of Neighbour Replication Grid Transaction Model

Real time application with replicated data in grid environment has received particular attention for providing efficient access, fault tolerance and enhance the performance of the system. This paper presents the new failure semantic to manage neighbour replication data in distributed environment. The failure semantic classes include the transaction abort and system failures. We address how to build reliable system for managing replication and transaction based on Neighbour Replication Grid (NRG) Transaction Model in terms to preserve the data consistency and support fault tolerance when exists the neighbour replica failure in quorum. In addition, we present an implementation of the propose failure semantic through NRG daemon by deploying real time application in distributed systems. The implementation shows that managing transactions on NRG through the failure semantic provides fault tolerance capabilities that allow it to withstand failure both in handling quorum locking and the transaction execution.

A Novel Algorithm of Managing Replication and Transaction through Read-one-Write-All Monitoring Synchronization Transaction System (ROWA-MSTS)

The birth of remarkable advance in the development of computer and hardware in computer world has enables us to access information anytime and anywhere regardless of the geography factor. Therefore, replication in distributed system environment has become increasingly popular due to its high degree of availability, fault tolerance and enhance the performance of a system. Read-One-Write-All Monitoring Synchronization Transaction System (ROWA-MSTS) has been developed to monitor data replication and transaction perform in distributed system environment. This paper presents a new algorithm to manage replication and transaction using ROWA-MSTS. The propose algorithm through ROWA-MSTS by deploying real time application in distributed systems environment. The propose algorithm implementation shows that ROWA-MSTS able to monitor the replicated data distribution while maintaining the data consistency over multiple sites.

PS2Way: An Efficient Pairwise Search Approach for Test Data Generation

Testing is a very important task to build error free software. Usually, the resources and time to market a software product is limited, hence, it is impossible to perform exhaustive test i.e., to test all combinations of input data. Pairwise (2way) test data generation approach supports higher reduction of exhaustive numbers as well as low cost and effective. In pairwise approach, most of the software faults are caused by unusual combination of input data. Hence, optimization in terms of number of generated test-cases and execution time is in demand. This paper proposes an enhanced pairwise search approach (PS2Way) of input values for optimum test data generation. This approach searches the most coverable pairs by pairing parameters and adopts one-test-at-a-time strategy to construct final test suites. PS2Way is effective in terms of number of generated test cases and execution time compared to other existing strategies.

A Parallel Tree Based Strategy for T-Way Combinatorial Interaction Testing

All software systems are built with basic components which interact with each other through predefined combination rules. As the number of components increases, the interactions between the components also increases exponentially which cause the combinatorial explosion problem. This mean complete (exhaustive) testing becomes unreasonable due to the huge number of possible combinations. Although 2-way interaction testing (i.e. pairwise testing) can relief and detect 50-97 percent of errors, empirical evidence has proved that 2-way interaction testing is a poor strategy for testing highly interactive systems and it has been showed that most of the errors are triggered by the interaction of 2-6 input parameters. In this paper we enhanced our previous strategy, “A Tree Based Strategy for Test Data Generation and Cost Calculation” by applying parallel algorithms to go beyond pairwise testing. The proposed strategy can support higher interaction testing. The designed algorithms are described in details with efficient empirical results.

EasyA: Easy and Effective Way to Generate Pairwise Test Data

Testing is a very important task to build error free software. As the resources and time to market is limited for a software product, it is impossible to perform exhaustive test i.e., to test all combinations of input data. To reduce the number of test cases in an acceptable level, it is preferable to use higher interaction level (t way, where t = 2). Pairwise (2- way or t = 2) interaction can find most of the software faults. This paper proposes a matrix based calculation for pairwise test data generation algorithm named EasyA to optimize the number of test cases. Java program has been used to test the performance of the algorithm. The performance is better than the existing algorithms/tools in terms of number of generated test cases and time consumption.