A test automation framework for collaborative testing of web service dynamic compositions

Abstract

The dynamic composition of services owned bydifferent vendors demands a high degree of test automation, which must be able to cope with the diversity of service implementation techniques and to meet a wide range of test requirements on-the-fly. These goals are hard to achieve because of the lack of software artefacts of the composed services and the lack of the means of control over test executions and the means of observations on the internal behaviours of composed services. Yet, such integration testing on-the-fly must be non-intrusive and non-disruptive while the composed services are in operation. This chapter presents a test automation framework for such on-the-fly testing of service compositions to facilitate the collaboration between test services through utilisation of Semantic Web Services techniques. In this framework, an ontology of software testing called STOWS are used for the registration, discovery and invocation of test services. The composition of test services is realized by using test brokers, which are also test services but specialized in the coordination of other test services. The ontology can be extended and updated through an ontology management service so that it can support a wide open range of test activities, methods, techniques and types of software artefacts. We also demonstrate the uses of the framework by two running examples.