Teste de sistemas de informação assíncronos: um estudo de caso

Abstract

Considering that it is difficult to test asynchronous systems, the objective of this work is to present the results of a case study intended to show how test developers can avoid false positives in the execution of automated tests for asynchronous information systems. Some of those false positives occur because of late or early assertions (verifications of the system that are not performed at an appropriate time). This is signaled by a test failure, whose purpose is to indicate the existence of a defect in the software under test and not in the test itself. Besides, another objective of this research was to show that we can reduce the time spent with the execution of asynchronous systems tests through the use of the ThreadControl framework instead of alternatives such as explicit delays. Moreover, we also propose some future investigations related to the test of asynchronous systems. The methodology used in this study included literature reviews and analysis of related work, including topics as multithreaded systems, software testing, distributed systems and asynchronous systems. The methodology of this work also included the design and development of a system to be used in the case study, which had to be asynchronous and distributed and whose tests were the object of this study. Based on this use, this study discusses some of the key challenges and lessons learned in testing asynchronous systems.