tap/index.php

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<h1>Test Automation Platform</h1>
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<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>Test Automation Platform (TAP) is a proposed open-source project under the Eclipse Technology project. 
The TAP project will add new extensibility and components to Eclipse for constructing system test automation 
solutions. This includes the creation of a new Eclipse platform designed for headless test execution. The 
concept encourages seamless interoperability among many commercial, proprietary, and open-source test-related plug-ins. You 
are invited to comment on and/or join the project. Please send all feedback to 
the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/thread.php?group=eclipse.tap">eclipse.tap</a> newsgroup.

<h2>Background</h2>

<p>System test automation involves black-box testing of systems
that include multiple devices or components that are being tested for
interoperability, functionality, performance, stress, etc.  System testing is used widely in networking,
data centers, etc.</p>

<p>Several components are required for a complete system test
automation solution including test authoring, specialized testing components
(such as network simulators, traffic generators, etc.), testbed inventory
management, testbed reservations, physical testbed topology management, test information
management, defect tracking, and many others. Some of these components may be "home-grown" while others may be
provided by commercial vendors or available as open-source.</p>

<p>Historically, interoperability between these components has
depended on the tools coming from a single provider, has required customized
"glue," or has required bilateral cooperation between each pairing of
providers. None of these is ideal to
foster an environment favoring innovation and "best of breed" components.</p>

<p>There exists a lot of disparate expertise surrounding these
various components and interfaces. We do
not believe that any one individual, organization, or company has sufficient
expertise to unilaterally define the best possible interfaces between these
tools. Therefore, we would like to see a
community develop where these experts can come together to collaborate on defining
excellent interface definitions that collectively allow for complete solutions
built from best-of-breed components. Even more than that, we believe that interface definitions are
insufficient to foster a healthy ecosystem and therefore would like to see an
open-source platform developed that allows each tool to be developed in
isolation with confidence that it will interoperate properly with other
components in a complete solution. Further, the open source component should include reference
implementations of these components so that there is a basic working solution
in place, allowing each component being added in to augment the value.</p>

<p>Also, an important aspect of test automation is that it involves
two distinct phases. In the first phase,
a human is designing, developing, and troubleshooting automated tests. In the second phase, the resulting automated
tests must be executed in a "lights-out" regression environment.
This execution involves many of the same
components and interoperability among them. 
So test automation tool interoperability involves both a
human-user-interface component and "headless" interoperability as well.</p>

<h2>Scope</h2>

<p>The goal of this proposed project is to use Eclipse as a
common foundation on which to build interoperability among otherwise disjoint
components of a test automation solution. Using Eclipse's extensibility model and Java APIs, this project will
define a variety of open interfaces between blocks of functionality that may
need to interoperate. 

These interfaces
are defined using a service model so that innovation is encouraged on both
sides of the interface &ndash; meaning that once a service is defined, many service
providers can be plugged in and, likewise, many different service consumers can
take advantage of each service. The
project will also create reference implementations of all of these components
with basic functionality &ndash; while allowing commercial and other implementations
to be plugged into these same extensibility points.</p>
<p>Eclipse itself (or other compatible RCPs) provides the
framework and user interface for operations that involve a human-user
interface. Within the scope of this
project is also the creation of a new "headless" runtime executable allowing
suitable components to use these same interfaces when executing tests.<span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> This is a new Equinox-based runtime with no dependencies on any UI
components nor on a workspace (i.e., the org.eclipse.core.resources
plug-in). Command-line arguments 
are used to communicate the reason that the
runtime is being invoked and to control the behavior.
</p>

<p>More specifically, the objectives for this project include:</p>

<ul>
<li>A new TAP feature that can be added into an
Eclipse installation that acts as common middleware for other tools that may
also be added into that same installation;</li>

<li>Extension point declarations and related Java
interface definitions for a variety of interfaces and/or services related to
system test automation;</li>

<li>Sufficient code to connect service providers to
service consumers in an appropriate many-to-many arrangement, insulating
service consumers from the complexity of “multiplexing”;</li>

<li>Reference implementations with basic
functionality of all services and service consumers for each interface so that
each tool implementation can be done without requiring any other commercial or
proprietary tool; and</li>

<li>A new runtime platform based on Eclipse without
a UI that is intended for performing test-related operations involving test
automation tools built on top of these interfaces and extension points.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Description</h2>

<p>While the scope of this project is quite wide  &ndash; involving
interoperability among many classes of different test-related tools, the
initial focus will be on one or two of these interfaces.
By showing that the model works between two
different classes of tools, we hope to encourage more tool providers with
expertise on other classes of test-related tools to contribute their expertise
in defining additional interfaces.</p>

<p>For the initial phase, we propose to define the interface
between test authoring tools (i.e., those tools that are used for creating
automated black-box system tests) and the specialized tools used for
controlling and monitoring the various components in a physical testbed during
testing. These tools used during manual
testing (e.g., virtual terminal, web browser, traffic generator, etc.) are also
needed during automated testing, so the service provided by the specialized
tools are also used by a test execution engine running either during test
development (within the GUI environment) or during an execution environment
(headless).</p>

<p>We also propose to define the interface between test
execution tools (that may be specific to the type of test being executed) and
other tools that are interested in post-processing the results of a test
execution, such as test reporting tools that will publish the results into a
centralized database.</p>

<p>We have a working prototype today of these interfaces
including reference service providers and service consumers implementations for
each. If and when this project is
approved into an incubation phase, we propose to contribute this code as a
starting point.</p>

<p>We foresee other interfaces coming along as well as other
contributors with relevant expertise joining the project.
Of particular interest is an interface
between test execution and testbed reservation/topology tools which are
essential to a complete solution. We also anticipate, for example, interfaces
between test scheduling tools and heterogeneous test execution tools (and so on).</p>

<p>We choose not to define a so-called "reference model" for
these various tools and components as we believe that this will tend to limit
the innovation that we would like to encourage. We prefer to focus on individual service 
and interfaces definitions that
experts agree will facilitate interoperability and open the door to new ideas
that exploit these same interfaces.</p>

<p>We have a commercial product today that is built on top of a
runtime version of Eclipse designed to run "headless" for executing tests.
We anticipate that some of this expertise can
be brought to bear on the goal of creating a suitable runtime platform for tool
integration.</p>

<h2>Organization</h2>

<h3>Mentors</h3>

<p>To be determined</p>

<h3>Committers</h3>

<p>The initial set of committers will be from Fanfare:</p>

<ul>
<li>Kingston Duffie <a href="mailto:kduffie@fanfaresoftware.com">kduffie@fanfaresoftware.com</a></li>
<li>Adam Bovill</li>
<li>Wei Dai</li>
<li>Pawan Singh</li>
</ul>

<p>We welcome participation early in the process from other
interested parties with relevant expertise.</p>

<h3>Interested Parties</h3>

<p>We have discussed this topic with a number of interested
parties representing both vendors and customers.
The following companies have expressed their intention of being an active 
part o this community:

<ul>
<li>Cisco &ndash; Contact: Bill Schongar <a href="mailto:bschonga@cisco.com">bschonga@cisco.com</a></li>
<li>BT Operate &ndash; Contact: Steve Thomas <a href="mailto:steve.g.thomas@bt.com">steve.g.thomas@bt.com</a></li>
<li>ProCurve Networking by HP &ndash; Contact: Vince Mendoza <a href="mailto:Vincent.mendoza@hp.com">vincent.mendoza@hp.com</a></li>
<li>Agilent &ndash; Contact: Todd Law <a href="mailto:todd_law@agilent.com">todd_law@agilent.com</a></li>
<li>Spirent Communications &ndash; Contact: Tom McBeath <a href="mailto:tom.mcbeath@spirent.com">tom.mcbeath@spirent.com</a></li>
</ul>
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