On the Need for Careful Definition of and Improved Capabilities in Quality-of-Service Unit Testing

Unit testing traditionally is a process for increasing confidence levels in functional attributes of large-scale distributed systems throughout the software lifecycle. As largescale distributed systems grow larger and more complex, increasing confidence levels in their quality-of-service (QoS) attributes, such as performance, reliability, and security, throughout the software lifecycle is becoming increasingly important. Little work, however, has investigated the challenges associated with unit testing QoS attributes of largescale distributed systems throughout the software lifecycle. This paper provides two contributions to testing QoS attributes of large-scale distributed systems. First, this paper defines the meaning unit testing QoS attributes. Secondly, it discusses challenges associated with unit testing QoS attributes of large-scale distributed. By addressing the challenges presented in this paper, distributed system developers will be able to improve QoS assurance of large-scale distributed systems throughout the software lifecycle.