Deliverable D2.3 The Pilots for the MIDAS platform validation – preliminary study, released
The objective of the MIDAS project is to carry out a comprehensive framework able to support the automation and intelligent management of SOA core testing tasks, such as test generation, scheduling, execution and arbitration.
In the MIDAS project terminology, the term Pilot identifies a complex, service oriented software system deployed on a business infrastructure that solves a set of common use cases in typical industrial scenarios.
The pilots are thought to be realistic representations of what could be a typical client for the MIDAS platform.
Process of testing complex service oriented architectures, like the proposed ones, is expensive and often non effective when measured according to quantitative or qualitative metrics. Sometimes the process of writing tests is too lengthy or too expensive. In other situations the test cases are covering only partially the range of possible situations thus bugs or defects remaining hidden.
Early involvement of the pilots in the MIDAS project has a threefold objective:
- Identify and state metrics by which pilots want to improve their testing activities.
- Verify to what extent MIDAS can tackle these requirements in its early prototype version and in subsequent refinements made possible by its open architecture.
- Identify how pilots will be useful to validate the selling point of the project which is defined in D8.2.
The MIDAS SOA testing automation objective is based on the assumption that after almost fifteen years of research on SOA testing it is possible and realistic to take a big step forward to SOA testing automation.
The two described pilots in the Healthcare and Supply Management Chain aim at demonstrating this assumption by providing each a plausible yet simplified business scenario where complex service oriented architectures are employed.
Management of clinical workflows for patients with chronic diseases is taken into account for the Healthcare related scenario. In this use case, several actors are involved in producing clinical reports and monitoring information. All information events update a workflow document that acts as a sort of index of the history of the patient’s disease. Handling this information that comes from vast and heterogeneous set of authors and authoring devices presents interoperability issues which are tackled by applying services that manage unique patient identification, information management according to the documental approach and harmonization of codesystems and terminologies.
In relation to Supply Chain Management a scenario will be setup where a customer buys some product in the shop or e-commerce triggering an order submission to the manufacturer. The manufacturer composes the order that is delivered by a transport to a warehouse. The warehouse receives the freight, prepares the required quantity and stocks the rest. Finally, a parcel is sent by transport to the shop where, upon receipt, the parcel is verified before filling in the gaps in the shelf.