Reusability and Effective Test Automation in Telecommunication System Testing

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis work was to design and implement an effective solution for automation of system testing of an IP/MPLS based system. This system is used by service providers to build access networks for providing Intranet, Extranet, Internet access and corporate voice services to business customers. The system consists of different network elements and a network management system with a graphical user interface.

A typical test case in system testing consists of both configuring network elements with help of the network management system for setting up a virtual private network and configuring measurement equipment for generating the data to be sent through the VPN to test it. In integration testing there is already some test automation used. But these both types of configurations are not done in the same test case and the automation of them is done by using different techniques.

By analyzing the automation practices used in integration testing to check what could be reused in automation of system testing, and by making necessary improvements and combining the used techniques, a structure for automated test cases in system testing was implemented. This structure turned out to be effective and test cases could he created with minimized maintenance costs and they could he run in different test environments quite easily. Therefore, this structure is recommended to he used in subsequent automation of system testing.