Bazzana Gualtiero - Model-Based Testing Essentials - Guide to the ISTQB Certified Model-Based Tester

Copyright 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey\hb

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kramer, Anne, (Software engineer) author. | Legeard, Bruno, author.

Title: Model-based testing essentials : guide to the ISTQB certified

model-based tester foundation level / Anne Kramer, Bruno Legeard.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : John Wiley & Sons Inc., [2016] | Includes

bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015035751 | ISBN 9781119130017 (cloth)

Subjects: LCSH: Computer software--Testing--Examinations--Study guides. |

Model-based reasoning--Examinations--Study guides. | International

Software Testing Qualifications Board--Examinations--Study guides. |

Electronic data processing personnel--Certification.

Classification: LCC QA76.76.T48 K73 2016 | DDC 005.3028/7--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015035751

To our families

When I was asked by my dear friend Bruno Legeard to provide a foreword to the Model-Based Testing Essentials book that he was authoring together with Anne Kramer, I was very pleased because this was a sort of flashback that reminded me of when I was younger, so much younger than today, and was preparing my PhD dissertation, which was based on automatic test generation for telecommunication systems based on SADT and SDL models further transformed into Petri Nets.

This is just a small witness of the fact that the concept of model-based testing (MBT) has been in existence for many years; nowadays methods, techniques, and tools have matured to a point at which MBT is ready for widespread adoption in many domains, starting from the ones that have historically taken advantage of such approach (e.g., aerospace, railway and telecommunications) to others, such as automotive, in which systematic structured testing techniques have been more and more applied in the last years and MBT has quickly become a de facto standard.

In my capacity of ISTQB President, I am very happy to welcome this book that will greatly help professionals in taking the exam for ISTQB Model-Based Tester certification; as a matter of fact, ISTQB has approved for general market availability in October 2015 the Model-Based Tester syllabus, which is available for free download from our website (www.istqb.org) and that is the basis around which this book has been prepared, constituting an excellent study guide to the ISTQB Certified Model-Based Tester.

ISTQB stand for International Software Testing Qualifications Board, a not-for-profit association, which has gained the status of world's leading organization for Software Testing Certification, by running over 560,000 exams as of June 2015.

Our mission is to continually improve and advance the software testing profession by defining and maintaining a Body of Knowledge that allows testers to be certified based on best practices, connecting the international software testing community, and encouraging research.

In this context, the ISTQB portfolio of certifications has recently been expanded in order to complement the historically Core certifications (Foundation, Advanced Test Manager, Advanced Test Analyst, Advanced Technical Test Analyst, Expert) with a set of certifications dedicated to Agile Testing and a brand new cluster of Specialist modules, whose goal is to cover specific topics/domains in a vertical way, using a drill-down/deep-dive approach.

The Model-Based Tester syllabus and certification is the first of several Specialist modules to be brought to market; it complements the Core Foundation as a Specialist module and it provides a practical and easy entry to the MBT approach.

The ISTQB Glossary of software testing terms defines Model-Based Testing as Testing based on or involving models; by studying this book, testers will learn how to use models to drive test analysis and design, as well as how to take advantage of the models for other testing activities such as test implementation and reporting. In so doing, you will be able to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the test process.

So, my thanks to the ISTQB Working Group members who developed the ISTQB MBT certification and to Anne and Bruno for providing a thorough and pragmatic study guide to it, which I am sure will be appreciated by the software testing professionals worldwide.

Gualtiero Bazzana

ISTQB President

Although I have long contended that all testing is model based, the nature of tools and models defines substantially different approaches to software testing. After some 20 years of research and practice in automated model-based testing over thousands of projects around the world, a broad, substantial, and proven body of knowledge has been established. I have been fortunate to play a role in this evolution as a developer and user of several model-based testing tools and as the author of three dozen test design patterns (each a model.)

During these two decades, software and computing technology has become indispensable for modern life and is increasingly shaping it. Although it has become easier to produce software, it has not become any easier to be sure that our creations are always well-behaved. Model-based testing has shown that it can better meet the quality challenges of present-day systems than the wishful thinking that is often used as a testing strategy.