Bernd Baumgarten - Böcker

This book presents recent worldwide results in both the theory and practice of the testing of communicating systems. Through a range of selected papers, this volume provides a forum in which the substantial volume of research on the testing of communicating systems, spanning from conformance testing through interoperability testing to performance testing, is brought together. The following topics are discussed in detail: types of testing; phases of the testing process; classes of systems to be tested, and theory and practice of testing. It contains the selected proceedings of the International Workshop on the Testing of Communicating Systems, formerly the International Workshop on Protocol Test Systems, sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing, and held in Darmstadt, Germany in September 1996.

An overview and a critical review of the Conformance Testing Methodology and Framework is provided by this book. This standard, ISO/IEC 9646, describes a methodology for testing implementations of Open System Interconnection (OSI) specifications. It is widely used by protocol and profile specifiers to help them specify their conformance requirements unambiguously and to provide proformas for suppliers to fill in to clarify which capabilities their products support. The standard is also used by test specifiers to define how to specify OSI conformance tests and to give guidance to test system developers. Further, it is used by test laboratories and the relevant accreditation bodies to define how an OSI test service should be operated. Finally, it is used by other testing methodology specifiers to serve as a guide on how to write testing methodology standards.

The publication, which will serve as a definitive textbook on the subject, enables readers to understand existing test documents, especially test suites, and aims to assist them in producing their own documents.

This volume contains the proceedings of the IFIP WG 6. 1 International Workshop on Testing of Communicating Systems (lWTCS'96), held in Darmstadt, Germany, on September 9 through II, 1996, continuing the IFIP WG 6. 1 series of International Workshops on Protocol Test Systems (IWPTS). In this series of working conferences, held annually since 1988, many valuable contributions have been presented with an emphasis both on the OSI conformance testing methodology and framework as well as the standardization effort on formal methods in conformance testing. While there are stilI open issues and divergencies between theory and practice in these fields, the scope of the series started expanding to related fields of growing practical relevance, for example to testing with regard to the B-ISDN protocol reference model, in particular ATM, the ODP reference model, and the Internet protocol suite, as well as to interoperability testing and performance testing. To reflect the extended scope, the program committee agreed on a new name for this series of working conferences, to be applied the first time to the 1996 conference. However, in order to emphasize the tradition of IWPTS, the numbering of this series was continued, such that IWTCS'96 is counted as the 9th International Workshop on Testing of Communicating Systems. As in the years before, the workshop aims at bringing together researchers and practi­ tioners, furthering the exchange of views, and correlating the work of both sides.