Improving TTCN-3 Test System Robustness Using Software Fault Tolerance

This paper contributes an analysis of possible pitfalls of automated test execution and provides an novel approach for TTCN-3 test system to manage and recover from errors occurred in the system under test (SUT) during test execution. The research problem addressed in this paper is how to facilitate recovery of distributed test system to recover from cascading errors caused by software faults in the SUT. This research problem is addressed by applying the software fault tolerance techniques in the implementation of the testing environment. Provided solutions for error recovery and management are derived from the software fault tolerance research work carried out during last decades. The presented approach is validated in a prototype TTCN-3 test environment supporting testing of distributed communication systems.