computaris top testing suite (quick demonstration)

Computaris TOP Testing Suite – Quick Demonstration Video v1.0 – Narration Text

At The Core

At the heart of Computaris TOP Testing Suite is JMeter – an

open source Java-based testing framework – providing the

logic for defining, managing and handling test plans. Various

plug-ins enable testing a full range of standard Telecom

protocols. Other protocols can be added as required. All

systems under test can be automatically and dynamically

tested as black boxes using a convenient graphical user

interface enabling operators to work out any test scenario,

varying from very simple to most complex.


Testing A Telecom Framework

TOP Testing Suite is a suite of testing tools providing

operators enhanced capabilities to comprehensively test

end-to-end telecom services. The suite can be used to

thoroughly test the communication path between originating

and terminating mobile devices all the way down to the

subscriber databases of a Telecom operator. TOP Testing

Suite can simulate CORBA network traffic originating from for

example Billing & Charging systems, Diameter traffic

originating from Service Control Points and CAMEL messages

from Mobile Switching Centers. This video will show you

how to apply CORBA and Diameter samplers for testing a

billing and charging server, a subscription manager, a rating

engine, an account manager and an offline billing server.


Test Plan - Flow Chart DEMO

The test plan works out a prepaid and a postpaid scenario

using CORBA and Diameter samplers. First the subscriber

IMSI is fetched from the CSV file. Based on the received IMSI

number subscriber information is fetched from the

subscription manager. For a prepaid subscriber a rate event is

issued to the rating engine to fetch the subscriber’s initial

balance from the account manager. To check whether the

balance is sufficiently high for using the requested service a

Diameter session with the online billing and charging server is

set up. As a last step of the prepaid scenario the subscriber’s

final balance is fetched from the account manager. For a

postpaid subscriber the postpaid scenario will be executed in

which the offline billing server will be updated with a call

detail record. Finally a brief status report will be written to an

output file.


Variables & Configuration Elements

The two main elements in the main window of TOP Testing

Suite are the test plan and the workbench. The test plan

contains the test scenario in the form of a multi-level tree of

child test elements. The workbench can be used to

temporarily store and quickly access any of the test elements.

On test plan level user defined variables can be used. The

default values can be entered manually to be reused by

elements elsewhere in the test plan. The CORBA

configuration element contains reference information about

the CORBA server under test and is contained in four IDL files

defining the account manager, the billing server, the rating

engine and the subscription manager. IDL files can simply be

added by clicking the file open icon. For the configuration of

the Diameter plug-in three values are important: the

hostname or IP address of the Diameter peer server under

test, its port number, and the local port number. Additional

tabs allow the further configuration of the Diameter protocol

messages such as the capability exchange and disconnect

peer request messages. A counter element is used for serving

the Diameter protocol and its variable name will be used

further on in the test plan for calculation of the Diameter

session IDs. The last configuration element defines the name

of the external CSV data file, the internal variable names TOP

uses for containing the data, and the type of delimiter used

for separating the data.


The Test Tree

The prepaid test scenario is handled by multiple CORBA,

Diameter and dummy samplers, starting with a CORBA

sampler for emulating rate events. A dummy sampler is used

to generate time delays. Another CORBA sampler fetches

the initial balance from the account manager; another

dummy sampler prepares the Diameter session IDs. From the

two Diameter samplers in the test plan the first one is used

for interrogating the online billing and charging server; the

second one returns termination messages with or without

used service unit depending on the result of the

interrogation. Another CORBA sampler fetches the

subscriber’s final balance from the account manager; the

prepaid results are stored using Javascript. For the postpaid

scenario a CORBA sampler writes a call data record to the

offline billing server; and the postpaid status results stored

again using Javascript. At the end of the test plan Javascript

writes all prepaid and postscript results to an output text file.

To collect and gather the test results 6 listeners conclude the

test plan.


CORBA & Diameter Samplers

A CORBA sampler can be simply added by choosing it from

the context menu. Configuration is intuitive and

straightforward. Only a CORBA server reference, and an IDL

file are needed; in this case the IDL file describing the CORBA

interface of the rating engine is selected. After choosing the

IDL file the module, the interface and the method can be

selected. The values of the parameters of the CORBA method

can be manually entered or be taken from a user defined

variable. The result of the CORBA method can be stored in a

variable; here we store the price to be used further on in the

test plan.

Adding a Diameter sampler is done in a similar way as for the

CORBA sampler. Configuration starts by giving a name to the

Diameter sampler followed by the type of messages to be

exchanged. This sampler is configured for issuing credit

control requests to the online billing and charging server.

New attribute value pairs can be easily added as children or

siblings by choosing from a wide range of predefined and

preconfigured AVPs. Just as for the CORBA sampler the result

of the Diameter sampler is also stored in a variable for further

usage within the thread group.


Test Run in Simulator Environment

With the number of threads set to five, choosing start from

the run menu triggers the execution of the test plan. The test

results are immediately displayed in the test environment

simulator. The generated test results can also be monitored

online from any of the listeners. Here we choose to view the

results from the CORBA Results Table listener. The simulator

shows the successive results generated by the CORBA and

Diameter samplers as received from the subscription

manager, the rating engine, the account manager and the

online and offline billing and charging servers. Consulting the

listeners we can view details about all performed CORBA and

Diameter message exchanges.


Listeners & Output File

TOP Testing Suite provides various types of listeners which can

be used for gathering information during a test run. Depending

on your needs you can choose the appropriate set of listeners

which allows you to view the test results in several formats.

For this demonstration we have used six listeners. The CORBA

results table listener displays all CORBA results in tabular

format. The view results tree listener presents the collected

information as a chronological tree; three tabs provide further

details and the results can be viewed in several formats. Two

other listeners provide statistical data about the message

exchanges. The Diameter Messages listener shows the

contents of all Diameter message exchanges; attribute value

pairs reveal the contents of all exchanged Diameter request

and answer messages. The sixth and last listener shows an

alternative view on the Diameter results displaying message

contents conveniently on separate tabs. And finally the results

of the test run are written to an external text file showing the

status results of the five threads.


Conclusion

TOP Testing Suite’s key features are its scalability, extensibility

and usability. Its technical features make it a robust, cost-

effective, convenient and user friendly telecom testing

solution that can be deployed at any stage of the product

development and deployment process. Computaris TOP

Testing Suite shifts control to the operator making it a

beneficial tool for the CSP community.

computaris top testing suite (quick demonstration)

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