Method and apparatus for testing and analyzing the conformance of a proposed set of requirements for a proposed network management application

摘要

A method and system for preparing a suite of test scripts for testing a proposed network management application. The proposed network management application, termed a subsystem control facility (SCF), is first defined as a set of requirements with the aid of a developmental tool incorporating a subsystem knowledgebase and a test generation knowledgebase. The subsystem knowledgebase contains the rules governing the operation of a given network and a library of permitted commands, objects, attributes, modifiers and other data. The test generation knowledgebase includes information relating to those commands and object specific to the proposed subsystem control facility set of requirements. A user interface coupled to the knowledgebases permits the selection of types of tests and specific commands and objects to be tested. Once test selection has been specified, test scripts corresponding to the selected tests are generated from the first and second knowledgebases for use in testing the proposed set of requirements for the SCF prior to coding the SCF. The suite of test scripts can be used to test the proposed SCF set of requirements, detect nonconformance with the rules and permit modification of the proposed set of SCF requirements. If necessary, additional testing may be performed using the same test scripts or a subset thereof, until the test results indicate no errors and a minimum number of warnings. Thereafter, the SCF product module can be coded. Errors in the developmental stage can be thus corrected early in the developmental cycle.