Deployed software component testing using dynamic validation agents

Software component run-time characteristics are largely dependent on their actual deployment situation. Validating software components i.e., confirming that they meet functional and nonfunctional property requirements, is time-consuming and for some properties quite challenging. We describe the use of “validation agents” to automate the testing of deployed software components to verify that they have the non-functional properties required. Our validation agents utilise “component aspects” that describe functional and non-functional cross-cutting concerns impacting on software components. Aspect information is queried by our validation agents and these construct and run automated tests on the deployed software components. The agents then determine if the deployed components meet their aspect-described requirements. Some agents deploy existing performance testbed generation tools to run realistic loading tests on components. We describe the motivation for our work, how component aspects are designed and encoded, our automated agent-based testing process, the architecture and implementation of our validation agents, and our experience in using them.