Vortragsprogramm - 06. November 2008

Model Based Testing of a financial
application – Experience report

This talk presents the deployment of a Model Based Testing solution to a project of migrating a critical financial application from Delphi to Java J2EE technologies. This is a middle size application of 8 p/y of development cost. The main objective is to test functional regression of the application in a context of an offshore development and iterative development process (which imply testing more frequently and ensuring strong regression testing).

Automated test scripts are automatically generated from a UML test model of the application and then published in HP Quality Center with test execution using HP Quick Test Professional. The test model has been developed specifically for test generation purpose. IBM Rational Software Modeler and LEIRIOS Test Designer have been used to automatically generate the test suites.

746 test cases have been automatically generated, and 77% of them are automated. The complete test suite execution time takes 6 hours and makes it possible to test each deliverable from India team (each week in release period to ensure non-regression testing). Project metrics an average of 14 automated tests produced per person.day, and more than 200 Quick Test Professional check-points per person.day.

The project results were on time delivery, systematic non-regression testing for each release (and after bug corrections), and a full coverage of project functional requirements. The Model Based Testing approach covers all functional testing need, mostly automated scripts, but also the remaining manual test cases.

This experience report provides several insights:

• How to deploy a Model Based Testing process in an IT department and in an offshoring development context
• How to transfer Model Based Testing know-how in a test center of a large bank division
• Metrics on modeling activities for test generation, issue finding, test automation costs
• Test generation strategies and test effectiveness
• How to trace from application use cases to test model and generated tests
• How to manage automated test generation according with risk management

Key points

• Experience report of deploying a Model Based Testing solution in a context of offshore development
• Showing how this accelerates and reduces the cost of producing and maintaining automated tests
• Giving project metrics on test generation productivity and accuracy of generated tests