Identifying Test Requirements by Analyzing SLA Guarantee Terms

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are used to specify the negotiated conditions between the provider and the consumer of services. In this paper we present a stepwise method to identify and categorize a set of test requirements that represent the potential situations that can be exercised regarding the specification of each isolated guarantee term of an SLA. This identification is addressed by means of devising a set of coverage levels that allow grading the thoroughness of the tests. The utilization of these test requirements would focus on twofold objectives: (1) the generation of a test suite that allows exercising the situations described in the test requirements and (2) the support for the derivation of a monitoring plan that checks the compliance of these requirements at runtime. The approach is illustrated over an eHealth case study.