US 5,675,731 A · Scatter load for system test

Abstract

Software systems such as file systems in a computer are tested by scatter load testing. Scatter load testing is accomplished by the computer system applying randomly selected operative test situations to the software system. The operative test situations are randomized by the computer randomly selecting a geometry, or configuration, for the software system under test and randomly selecting a workload on the selected software system configuration. The randomization of workload selection can be further enhanced by expanding the workload to one or more tasks and randomly selecting objects, actions and parameters that make up each workload task to be performed during the test. As the random operative situation is run on the system, operation test results are output from the computer to indicate the performance of the software system being tested. Choice constraints may be placed on the random selection of the various test elements of the operative test situation. Each choice of software system configuration, workload, and operations and parameters within a workload task may be compared against constraints for these test elements. Thus, the testing may be constrained to randomly select only operative test situations that are useful and effective test situations within a test sub-domain of a larger test domain containing all possible operative test situations.

Claims30

Dependent claims

In a computer having a software system, a method for scatter load testing the software system in test subdomains inside a test domain containing all possible configurations and operative test situations for the software system, said method comprising the computer implemented steps of:

(A) generating a random geometry for the software system to produce a software system configuration for testing;
(B) generating a random workload for the software system configuration, said random workload and said software system configuration together defining an operative test situation;
(C) running the random workload on the software system configuration and providing a test result output for each operative test situation;
(D) detecting whether the operative test situation is within test constraints defining a test subdomain with the test domain;
and
(E) repeating step (B) if step (D) detects the operative test situation is not within the test constraints.

3 more elements

Apparatus for scatter load testing a file system in a computer with random workloads, the computer having a processor, a keyboard, and a plurality of data storage devices, said file system operating the processor and controlling the plurality of data storage devices, said processor having a central processing unit, memory and input/output control, said input/output control connected to the keyboard and data storage devices, said apparatus comprising:

random test generating module for randomly generating a file system configuration and a plurality of operative tasks for the file system configuration as a test workload for the file system;
test run module for running the plurality of operative tasks in parallel on the file system configuration as the test workload for the file system;
said random test generating module repeatedly generating test workloads and said test run module running the test workloads as they are generated in order to scatter load the file system with a random distribution of test workloads over a test domain of all possible test workloads for the file system.

A method for scatter load testing a file system in a computer with random workloads, the computer having a processor, a keyboard, and a plurality of data storage devices, said file system operating the processor and controlling the plurality of data storage devices, said processor having a central processing unit, memory and input/output control, said input/output control connected to the keyboard and data storage devices, said method comprising the computer implemented steps of:

randomly generating a file system configuration and a plurality of operative tasks for the file system configuration as a test workload for the file system;
test running the plurality of operative tasks in parallel on the file system configuration as the test workload for the file system;
said randomly generating step repeatedly generating test workloads and said test running step running the test workloads as they are generated in order to scatter load the file system with a random distribution of test workloads over a test domain of all possible test workloads for the file system.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Scatter load for system test

Life of this patent

Scatter load for system test

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims30