An automatic performance testing method based on a formal model for communicating systems

In this paper we present a novel black box testing method for the performance validation of systems implementing a communication protocol. Our method solves the main problem of this kind of performance testing, namely its ad-hocness, by proposing a theoretical background for it. As a part of the presented methodology, we show how to map two kinds of performance requirements to a performance model and how to compare this model to the physical implementation. For comparing the physical implementation to the performance model automatically, we introduce a worst-case method and a probabilistic method. We also present our simulation results according to which, the proposed methods are correct and can be used efficiently.