Reducing Verification Effort in Component-Based Software Engineering through Built-In Testing

Today component- and service-based technologies play a central role in many aspects of enterprise computing. However, although the technologies used to define, implement, and assemble components have improved significantly over recent years, techniques for verifying systems created from them have changed very little. The correctness and reliability of component-based systems are still usually checked using the traditional testing techniques that were in use before components and services became widespread, and the associated costs and overheads still remain high. This paper presents an approach which addresses this problem by making the system verification process more component-oriented. Based on the notion of built-in tests - tests that are packaged and distributed with prefabricated, off-the-shelf components - the approach and supporting infrastructure help to automate some of the testing process, thereby significantly reduces system testing effort. After providing an introduction to the principles behind component-based verification, and explaining the main features of the approach, we show by means of a small example how it can reduce system verification effort