Agile test framework for business-to-business interoperability

Abstract

Business-to-business (B2B) applications are tested routinely for conformance and interoperability against a set of data exchange standards before deployment. However, the existence of many data exchange standards, planned utilizations, deployment environments, and testing scenarios makes it difficult to develop reusable testing tools. To address this challenge, we propose the Agile Test Framework (ATF), which consists of a test case design and test execution model. Test case is defined at two levels: abstract and executable. The abstract level addresses issues related to human understanding and the executable level addresses issues related to machine processing. The test execution model addresses issues related to both reusability and plug-compatibility. The ATF allows the test engineer to generate test cases for a variety of standards and scenarios. Thus, it increases reusability, extensibility, and efficiency compared to other test frameworks.