Abstract
Many systems interact with their environment at physically distributed interfaces called ports. In testing such a system we might use a distributed approach in which there is a separate tester at each port. If the testers do not synchronise during testing then we cannot always determine the relative order of events observed at different ports and corresponding implementation relations have been developed for distributed testing. One possible method for strengthening the implementation relation is for testers to synchronise through exchanging coordination messages but this requires sufficiently fast communications channels and can increase the cost of testing. This paper explores an alternative in which each tester has a local clock and timestamps its observations. If we know nothing about how the local clocks relate then this does not help while if the local clocks agree exactly then we can reconstruct the sequence of observations made. In practice, however, we are likely to be between these extremes: the local clocks will not agree exactly but we have assumptions regarding how they can differ. This paper explores several such assumptions and derives corresponding implementation relations.
Research partially supported by the Spanish MICINN project TESIS (TIN2009-14312-C02-01) and the UK EPSRC project Testing of Probabilistic and Stochastic Systems (EP/G032572/1). This research was carried out while the second author was visiting Brunel University supported by a grant Fundación Caja Madrid para movilidad de profesores de universidades públicas de Madrid.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Hierons, R.M., Bogdanov, K., Bowen, J., Cleaveland, R., Derrick, J., Dick, J., Gheorghe, M., Harman, M., Kapoor, K., Krause, P., Luettgen, G., Simons, A., Vilkomir, S., Woodward, M., Zedan, H.: Using formal methods to support testing. ACM Computing Surveys 41(2) (2009)
Grieskamp, W., Kicillof, N., Stobie, K., Braberman, V.: Model-based quality assurance of protocol documentation: tools and methodology. Software Testing, Verification and Reliability 21(1), 55–71 (2011)
Tretmans, J.: Model Based Testing with Labelled Transition Systems. In: Hierons, R.M., Bowen, J.P., Harman, M. (eds.) FORTEST. LNCS, vol. 4949, pp. 1–38. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
ISO/IEC JTC 1, J.T.C.: International Standard ISO/IEC 9646-1. Information Technology - Open Systems Interconnection - Conformance testing methodology and framework - Part 1: General concepts. ISO/IEC (1994)
Hierons, R.M., Merayo, M.G., Núñez, M.: Implementation relations and test generation for systems with distributed interfaces. Distributed Computing 25(1), 35–62 (2012)
Cacciari, L., Rafiq, O.: Controllability and observability in distributed testing. Information and Software Technology 41(11-12), 767–780 (1999)
Rafiq, O., Cacciari, L.: Coordination algorithm for distributed testing. The Journal of Supercomputing 24(2), 203–211 (2003)
Jard, C., Jéron, T., Kahlouche, H., Viho, C.: Towards automatic distribution of testers for distributed conformance testing. In: TC6 WG6.1 Joint Int. Conf. on Formal Description Techniques and Protocol Specification, Testing and Verification, FORTE 1998, pp. 353–368. Kluwer Academic Publishers (1998)
Lamport, L.: Time, clocks, and the ordering of events in a distributed system. Communications of the ACM 21(7), 558–565 (1978)
Jard, C., Jéron, T., Tanguy, L., Viho, C.: Remote testing can be as powerful as local testing. In: 19th Joint Int. Conf. on Protocol Specification, Testing, and Verification and Formal Description Techniques, FORTE/PSTV 1999, pp. 25–40. Kluwer Academic Publishers (1999)
Lamport, L., Melliar-Smith, P.: Synchronizing clocks in the presence of faults. Journal of the ACM 32(1), 52–78 (1985)
Fidge, C.: A limitation of vector timestamps for reconstructing distributed computations. Information Processing Letters 68(2), 87–91 (1998)
Baeten, J., Middelburg, C.: Process algebra with timing. EATCS Monograph. Springer (2002)
Hierons, R.M., Merayo, M.G., Núñez, M.: Using time to add order to distributed testing (2012), http://antares.sip.ucm.es/manolo/papers/fm2012_extended.pdf
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Hierons, R.M., Merayo, M.G., Núñez, M. (2012). Using Time to Add Order to Distributed Testing. In: Giannakopoulou, D., Méry, D. (eds) FM 2012: Formal Methods. FM 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7436. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32759-9_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32759-9_20
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-32758-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-32759-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)