A Generic Gateway for Testing Heterogeneous Components in Acceptance Testing Tools

Acceptance testing tools and Systems Under Test (SUT) require a gateway that will set up the communication link between them. Nevertheless, SUTs are often large systems composed of heterogeneous components that are executed in heterogeneous networks and platforms. Therefore, a non trivial communication problem between testing tools and these SUT heterogeneous components arises. A significant effort is invested in designing and implementing gateways for each specific component interface to cope with heterogeneity. This problem may be addressed through the use of middleware technologies that hide heterogeneity. However, this solution is too specific for each SUT domain. It may require a noteworthy effort to support the wide range of currently available interface standards that are provided by the different platforms and networks. An approach for testing heterogeneous components based on a generic gateway is presented in this paper. The generic gateway implements a service-oriented middleware named OSGi (Open Service Gateway initiative). OSGi helps to solve the heterogeneity problem and reduces the impact of designing a gateway for each specific SUT domain. The solution has been validated using the acceptance testing tool TOPEN (Test and Operation ENvironment) in a home automation scenario.