Testing-based Process for Evaluating Component Replaceability

Replacing pieces of component-based systems carries a serious risk on the expected stability. Substitutability of components must then be carefully identified. With this intent, this paper presents a process to evaluate replacement components by complementing the conventional compatibility analysis with component testing criteria. Functions of data transformation encapsulated by components (i.e. their behaviour) are analysed according to the Observability testing metric. For a component under substitution, a Component Behaviour Test Suite is built to be later applied on candidate replacement components. This approach is also known as Back-to-Back testing. The whole process is currently supported through the tool testooj, which is focused on testing Java components.