Effects of Development Platform Heterogeneity in Testing of Heterogeneous systems: An Industrial Survey

Abstract: Context. Over the years, software has evolved to a large and complex system of systems. According to the literature, a heterogeneous system is defined as “a system comprised of n number of subsystems where at least one subsystem exhibits heterogeneity with respect to other subsystem”. The area of research in heterogeneous system has also received large attention in recent years, as a result of shift in technology and customer needs. In heterogeneous systems, heterogeneity may occur in different dimensions for different systems. Objectives. The main aim of this thesis is, “to investigate the effects of development platform heterogeneity in heterogeneous system on the test process”. The objectives to achieve our aim is to determine the influence of platform heterogeneity on software testing and also to investigate best practices for testing heterogeneous systems with different types of heterogeneity. Methods. An industrial survey and interviews with practitioners are considered as a research method in this thesis. The purpose of this survey is to help the testers to understand how the platform heterogeneity affects the test process. Results. In this research, the researcher had gathered data related to effects and best practices in heterogeneous systems from both survey and interviews. Conclusions. In this thesis, the researcher had investigated the effects of development platform heterogeneity in heterogeneous system on the test process and also identified the best practices for testing heterogeneous systems that exhibit different types of heterogeneity. Apart from these, the researcher also identified different types of development platforms used for development of a heterogeneous type of systems in the industry.