Model-Based Testing: The New Revolution in Software Testing

The efforts spent on testing are enormous due to the continuing quest for better software quality, and the ever growing complexity of software systems. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the complexity of testing tends to grow faster than the complexity of the systems being tested, in the worst case even exponentially. Whereas development and construction methods for software allow the building of ever larger and more complex systems, there is a real danger that testing methods cannot keep pace with construction, hence these new systems cannot be sufficiently fast and thoroughly be tested. This may seriously hamper the development of future generations of software systems. One of the new technologies to meet the challenges imposed on software testing is model-based testing. Models can be utilized in many ways throughout the product life-cycle, including: improved quality of specifications, code generation, reliability analysis, and test generation. This paper will focus on the testing benefits from MBT methods and review some of the historical challenges that prevented model based testing and we also try to present the solutions that can overcome these challenges.