Telephonic communications – Diagnostic testing – malfunction indication – or electrical... – Of data transmission
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-11
2001-07-31
Kuntz, Curtis (Department: 2743)
Telephonic communications
Diagnostic testing, malfunction indication, or electrical...
Of data transmission
C379S009000, C379S015050, C379S032010, C370S244000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06269150
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention generally relates to a method and apparatus for testing of complex telecommunication systems and, more particularly, for automated testing of complex telecommunication systems.
In the manufacture, design and operation of complex telecommunication systems equipment, such as a central office telephone switch having connections to as many as 100,000 customer telephone lines plus thousands of trunk connections to other switches (e.g., the 5ESS® Switch as described at http://www.lucent.com
etsys/5ESS/5esswtch.html, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference), it is necessary to test the system to determine whether it is operating correctly under various operating test conditions. A complex test environment is required to test such a system, including test equipment to stress the capacity limits and verify that calls and maintenance activities work correctly even under high system load.
The present techniques for testing complex telecommunication systems employ testing software that is designed to emulate the tests that previously had been performed manually by testing personnel. These so-called automated tests are performed under control of an operator of a test computer. The operator must remain in attendance to respond to problems encountered in performing any of the automated tests and to take steps to cause the telecommunication system to recover from any failures of the system caused by the tests being performed. For example, if the automated test requires a particular system resource, such as a 2-way trunk that uses CCITT7 signaling, that is not operational or otherwise not available for use during the test, the test operator must then look for and select an alternative resource to perform the test. Likewise, if the system fails, the test operator must return the system to a predetermined state in order for the testing to continue.
The need for the attendance of test operators, especially during third work shifts and on weekends, substantially adds to the costs of testing. The present inventors have determined that this need for attendance has been caused, at least in part, by the known automated testing systems attempting to replicate the previously used manual tests. They have thereby limited the automated tests to a model of only what a manual tester could do and how a manual test would be performed.
Accordingly, these known systems have disadvantageously not been provided with the features the inventors believe is required to enable the production and operation of fully automated test systems, or unattended, automated test systems that do not require a test operator in attendance to overcome the conventional testing problems noted above.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the present invention, a reliable, unattended, automated testing system and method of testing for a complex telecommunication system is provided that overcome the limitations and disadvantages of the known automated test systems noted above.
In accordance with the invention, the preferred embodiment of the reliable, unattended, automated testing system for a complex telecommunication system has a library procedure repository for storing a software library of commonly performed computer-executable procedures for testing a complex telecommunication system in which each of said procedures has at least one of fault tolerance strategy and failure recovery strategy as part of the procedure, and a test computer for running a suite of tests on a complex telecommunication system including at least selected ones of the commonly performed procedures of the library procedure repository.
Preferably, all the tests from which the test suites are composed have both fault tolerance strategy and failure recovery strategy integrated into the test. The fault tolerant strategy includes a strategy of automatic acquisition of alternate test resources needed to perform the test in the event of failure of primary test resources, while the failure recovery strategy integrated into the test includes at least one of the strategies of collecting more information about failures to facilitating isolating and identifying the problem, and returning the telecommunication system to a preselected state required to continue with the remainder of the tests of the suite.
Preferably, the library procedure repository includes resource object procedures for controlling common resources of a telecommunication system as objects, and the suite of tests includes at least selected ones of the resource object procedures to control the resources needed for performance of the at least selected ones of the commonly performed procedures of the library procedure repository.
Accordingly, the preferred method for reliable, unattended, automated testing of a complex telecommunication system of the present invention is performed by the steps of storing in a library procedure repository a software library of commonly performed computer-executable procedures for testing the complex telecommunication system in which each of said procedures have at least one of fault tolerance strategy and failure recovery strategy as part of the procedure, and operating a test computer to run a suite of tests on the complex telecommunication system including at least selected ones of the commonly performed procedures of the library procedure repository.
Preferably, performance of each of the tests of the suite of tests run by the computer includes the steps of selecting test resources needed for each test, establishing initial states for the test case, establishing a test scenario, determining the final states of the telecommunication system under test after completion of the test, cleaning up the test and reporting the results of the test.
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Herrbach Lee Arlan
Klick Victoria Blake
Sands Jeffrey Leigh
Kuntz Curtis
Lucent Technologies - Inc.
Tieu Binh K.
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