Testing distributed component based systems using UML/OCL

Abstract

We present a pragmatic approach using formal methods to increase the quality of distributed component based systems: Based on UML class diagrams annotated with OCL constraints, code for runtime checking of compo-nents in J2EE/EJB is automatically generated. Thus, a UML–model for a component can be used in a black–box test for the component. Further we introduce different de-sign patterns for EJBs, which are motivated by different levels of abstraction, and show that these patterns work smoothly together with our OCL constraint checking. A prototypic implementation of the code generator, supporting our patterns with OCL support, has been inte-grated into a commercial software development tool 1 .