The Testability of Distributed Real-Time Systems: 245 (The Springer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science, 245) - Hardcover

Schütz, Werner

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0792393864 ISBN 13: 9780792393863

Publisher: Springer, 1993

Synopsis

BY H. KOPETZ A real-time computer system must provide the intended service in two di­ mensions: the functional (value) dimension and the temporal dimension. The verification of a real-time system implementation is thus necessarily more com­ plex than the verification of a non-real-time system which has to be checked in the value dimension only. Since the formal verification techniques of temporal properties have not yet matured to the point where these techniques can be used in practical system development, systematic design and testing are the only alternatives for the development of dependable real-time systems. At present, up to and more than fifty percent of the development eff'ort of complex real-time computer systems is spent on testing. The test activities are thus a significant cost element in any real-time system project. The attack on this cost element has to proceed from two fronts: the design for testability and the development of a systematic test methodology supported by an appropriate tool set. This book covers both of these topics.

About this title

Synopsis

"The Testability of Distributed Real-Time Systems" starts by collecting and analyzing all principal problems, as well as their interrelations that one has to keep in mind when testing a distributed real-time system. This book discusses them in some detail from the viewpoints of software engineering, distributed systems principles, and real-time system development. These problems are organization, observability, reproducibility, the host/target approach, environment simulation, and (test) representativity. Based on this framework, this book summarizes and evaluates the current work done in this area before going on to argue that the particular system architecture (hardware plus operating system) has a much greater influence on testing than is the case for 'ordinary', non-real-time software.The notions of event-triggered and time-triggered system architectures are introduced, and its is shown that time-triggered systems 'automatically' (i.e. by the nature of their system architecture) solve or greatly ease solving of some of the problems introduced earlier, i.e. observability, reproducibility, and (partly) representativity.

A test methodology is derived for the time-triggered, distributed real-time system MARS. This book describes in detail how the author has taken advantage of its architecture, and shows how the remaining problems can be solved for this particular system architecture. Some experiments conducted to evaluate this test methodology are reported, including the experience gained from them, leading to a description of a number of prototype support tools."The Testability of Distributed Real-Time Systems" can be used by both academic and industrial researchers interested in distributed and/or real-time systems, or in software engineering for such systems. This book can also be used as a text in advanced courses on distributed or real-time systems.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0792393864
• ISBN 13: 9780792393863
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 160