Passive Testing on Performance Requirements of Network Protocols

Performance testing of communicating protocols is a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of a system, aiming to check whether the performance requirements have been satisfied under certain conditions. It raises an interesting issue: how to formalize the specified detailed performance requirements by taking consideration of data values of the messages. The passive testing techniques are approaches that can be applied when the controllability of the system interfaces is unavailable or when the implementation under test cannot be stimulated in runtime. In this paper, we present a novel logic-based passive testing approach in specifying time related protocol properties to be tested on real execution traces. Based on a new algorithm, a prototype is developed and experienced. In order to evaluate and assess our approach, we present experiments through a set of IMS/SIP properties and real execution traces. Finally, relevant verdicts and discussions are provided.