Authors:
Samia Oussena
1
;
Balbir Barn
2
and
Dan Sparks
1
Affiliations:
1
Thames Valley University, United Kingdom
;
2
Middlessex University, United Kingdom
Keyword(s):
Testing, Test-driven Development, Distributed Architecture, Framework, SOA, BPEL, WSDL, XML.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Agents
;
Artificial Intelligence
;
Communication and Software Infrastructure
;
e-Business
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Enterprise Service Architectures
;
Enterprise Software Technologies
;
Service-Oriented Computing
;
Services
;
Software Engineering
;
Software Engineering Methods and Techniques
;
Software Testing and Maintenance
Abstract:
Test driven development (TDD) is emerging as one of the most successful developer productivity aids. A key feature of TDD is the construction of a robust test harness before implementing code, enabling the creation of a “virtual contract”. The semantics of that contract are the fully enumerated set of test conditions for the system under construction. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) raises a particular challenge in that there exists no unified method for testing an SOA application, which not only looks at individual artefact of the SOA application but also the complete application. Further, in SOA, the flexibility and connectivity provided by loosely coupled services increases both the opportunity for errors and the complexity of the testing. Given this situation, this paper describes a unified test-driven approach to a ground-up implementation of an SOA application where testing is seen as central to the development process. The paper proposes a framework that focuses on process
-, configuration-, and service-oriented testing that provides relatively complete and flexible viewpoints of an SOA artefact’s health. A critical evaluation of our approach is presented in the context of the development of SOA applications that support core Higher Education business processes.
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