66T

Testing Distributed Object Systems

John McGregor, Clemson University and Software Architects

Pan Pacific Hotel
Pavilion C

This tutorial focuses on techniques and a process for testing components built to be distributed across multiple processes. The tutorial will not be limited to a specific distribution architecture such as CORBA, but it will provide specific examples that use specific architectures. The tutorial is divided into two parts: (1) specific techniques and small examples to illustrate specific testing algorithms and (2) an architecture for developing the software needed for constructing test harnesses. The techniques presented in the tutorial are intended to provide variable levels of coverage and to allow the developer to focus on specific types of faults.

Component developers and technically-oriented system testers will benefit from this tutorial. Test managers and quality control personnel who are technically oriented will also benefit. The major benefits from this tutorial include specific testing techniques, and a specific infrastructure for building a reusable testing environment.

Attendee Background: Participants should have participated in the construction of distributed object-oriented programs and performed some level of testing on these programs. This tutorial assumes experience in the use of object-oriented development methods to build distributed systems. It also assumes a typical developer's knowledge of testing techniques. The examples used in the tutorial use C++/Java syntax; however, the discussion of the testing approach provides sufficient context for experienced developers to understand the example even if they do not read C++/Java.

Dr. John D. McGregor is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Clemson University and a senior partner in Software Architects, a software design consulting firm, specializing in object-oriented design techniques. Dr. McGregor has developed testing techniques for object-oriented software and custom testing processes for a variety of companies. He is co-author of "Object-Oriented Software Development: Engineering Software for Reuse" published by Van Nostrand Reinhold. Dr. McGregor is also co-author of "A Practical Guide to Testing Object-Oriented Software," to be published by Addison-Wesley. He has published numerous articles on testing including a monthly column on testing objects in the Journal of Object-Oriented Programming.

66T

Testing Distributed Object Systems

Other tutorials in the testing thread are:

Other tutorials in the distributed object computing thread are:

for beginners (yellow):
Tutorial 17, 17T*: Introduction to Distributed Computing Using Objects Tutorial 6, 6R: OMG's CORBA and Object Management Architecture

for intermediates (green):
Tutorial 6, 6R: OMG's CORBA and Object Management Architecture Tutorial 26: Distributed Java Applications