Combinando perfil operacional do software e perfil de teste para uma estratégia de teste aderente às necessidades dos usuários

Abstract

The Software's Operational Profile (SOP) is a representation of how users use the software in practice, thus identifying the parts of the software most operated by the users. Since the reliability of a software depends on the context in which it is used, the SOP is employed in software reliability engineering. However, there are signs of a possible mismatch between the software's tested parts and the SOP. The objective of this work is to investigate the possible mismatch between the tested parts of the software and the SOP and how data extracted from the SOP can provide contributions to other test strategies not related to reliability testing. We performed experimental studies to obtain data that would allow achieving and materializing the objectives through publications throughout the doctoral period, providing the contributions of this research. The main contributions of this research are: i) Evidence that proves that there are significant variations in the way users operate the software even when performing the same operation that it is possible that there is a mismatch between the tested parts of the software and the SOP, and that failures can occur in parts of the SOP not tested; ii) Evidence that a test strategy based on merging an existing test suite with a test suite generated by an automated test data tool can decrease the mismatch but does not prevent this mismatch; iii) Presentation of the "Test Profile" concept; iv) Design and implementation of OPDaTe tool whose purpose is to contribute to reducing the mismatch between the SOP and the test profile through the automatic generation of executable test cases with test data obtained dynamically from the SOP; v) Conducting a systematic mapping and a systematic review of the literature that investigates the use of the SOP. The results obtained by the research show the relevance of SOP to software testing, making it possible to align testing strategies with the operational use of the software and, thus, be in line with the users' needs.