Assigning a value to a communication protocol test case using sensitivity analysis

There is an enormous number of test cases that can be derived from any complex communication protocol. In order to test an implementation, in a reasonable amount of time and consuming only a reasonable amount of resources, the number of test cases in a test suite has to be within a reasonable limit. Some selection criteria need to be set in order to reduce the number of test cases. By assigning a variable to a test case, the relative importance of test cases can be ranked and an optimal test suite can then be designed. This paper describes a method of assigning a value to a test case in a test suite generated from an Estelle specification; the method is based on sensitivity analysis.