Consistency Reflection for Automatic Update of Testing Environment

Abstract

In this paper, we present an approach for maintaining consistency among design models, system under test, and test components. Our approach provides an automatic updating technique to deal with changes that happen frequently in agile software development. Consistency reflection by automatic updating allows us to cut off manual tasks required in maintaining automated tests and speed up testing process which is a bottleneck in service development lifecycle. We introduce the use of metadata, the data structure that describes structural behavior of the system, in our automatic updating technique. Metadata is used as a common medium for communicating changes to keep consistency among design, system under test, and test components. We present an example of testing process to show how we apply this approach in practice.