Test-Ready Model for Flexible Systems of Systems

Complex, dynamically reconfigurable, distributed systems are common in today’s component-based mission-critical systems. Conventional testing tools used for certifying such systems are less likely to succeed in such less-predictable and evolving domains where underlying assumptions with respect to the structure of the system are constantly being violated. Furthermore, given the vast complexity of such systems and impracticality of exhaustive testing of the overall multidimensional state space, new methodologies and computational infrastructures are necessary to deal with dynamically reconfigurable systems. We propose a computational framework that could facilitate scalable and sound reasoning approach by localizing the detection of faults that occur at run-time. The premises of the proposed approach are (1) local certification of components with respect to their contractual specifications, (2) packaging of the contracts, test cases, and built-in self test mechanisms with the component using a metadata wrapper technology, and (3) use of associated run-time interface violation detector mechanisms to detect deviations from acceptable behavior as components reconfigure and interact at run-time. By embodying the behavioral interface models with semi-automatically generated wrappers, the proposed technology will support services for run-time contract violation checking and built-in-self testing even when the underlying component technology does not provide built-in introspective reflection capabilities.