End-to-End Integration Testing

Software testing research traditionally focuses on module testing rather than integration testing. Thus, many techniques are available to address module testing, but few are available for integration testing. Unfortunately, in practice, integration testing is often more important and more time consuming than module testing. For example, during the recent Department of Defense (DoD) Y2K testing [DoD 1999, DoD 2000], the largest testing effort ever of the agency, it is integration testing rather than module testing that consumed most of the resources. Recognizing the importance of integration testing, the DoD initiated a project that addresses end-to-end integration testing [DoD 2001, Tsai 2001a, Tsai 2001b].