Big Data-based Testing: Characteristics, Challenges, and Future Directions

With the rise of the applications of the Internet of Things (IoT) in human society, how to ensure the reliability of IoT systems has become a research hotspot. Generally, there are complex interactions between multiple systems in IoT. Therefore, even if a single system can pass rigorous tests, it may not be able to guarantee that the system runs reliably in a complex IoT environment. With the operation of the IoT system, a large amount of data will be generated to record sensor data, system operations, user’s operations, and other information. Therefore, software faults or software design defects can be discovered if we use appropriate big data technology to mine the massive amount of data. The paper states the characteristics of big data-based testing and compares this test method with traditional software test methods in the software life cycle. Then, the paper discusses the challenges of applying big data-based testing to IoT systems. Finally, some future research directions of big data-based testing are given in the paper.