No.4 ESS: Program Administration, Test, and Evaluation

Abstract

A number of hardware and software support systems are used in the design, testing, evaluation, and administration of the No. 4 ess software. The Program Administration System (pas) provides a management facility for the large data base that consists of the multitude of ess programs. These programs must be changed, controlled, and manipulated in a uniform fashion to produce the various official releases of the No. 4 ess software without jeopardizing the integrity of the data base. The 1A Processor Utility System uses a minicomputer and a hardware interface with the No. 4 ess as an operating system for the interpretation, initialization, execution, monitoring, and display of tests written in a high-level utility language. Thus it makes available a convenient means for testing and debugging No. 4 ess software in a system laboratory environment. A directed-graph model, describing the sequential stimulus-action-transition behavior of a software process under test, acts as a reference and a starting point for the Automated Testing and Load Analysis System (atlas). Components of atlas then automatically derive tests and employ test directives embedded in the model to apply and monitor tests for the modeled process. Testing of the ess software under high traffic loads is achieved in the laboratory by the Programmed Electronic Traffic Simulator (pets). This system simulates the peripheral equipment and monitors the ess responses for deviations from a norm.