Enterprise Software Service Emulation: Constructing Large-Scale Testbeds
This provides a practical solution for enterprises needing scalable testbeds to improve software design, though it is incremental in applying emulation techniques to specific domain problems.
The paper tackles the challenge of constructing large-scale testbeds for evaluating non-functional qualities like scalability in enterprise software services by introducing a meta-modelling framework and Kaluta, an emulation environment that can emulate 10,000 servers on a single machine and was used to test a real identity management suite.
Constructing testbeds for systems which are interconnected with large networks of other software services is a challenging task. It is particularly difficult to create testbeds facilitating evaluation of the non-functional qualities of a system, such as scalability, that can be expected in production deployments. Software service emulation is an approach for creating such testbeds where service behaviour is defined by emulate-able models executed in an emulation runtime environment. We present (i) a meta-modelling framework supporting emulate-able service modelling (including messages, protocol, behaviour and states), and (ii) Kaluta, an emulation environment able to concurrently execute large numbers (thousands) of service models, providing a testbed which mimics the behaviour and characteristics of large networks of interconnected software services. Experiments show that Kaluta can emulate 10,000 servers using a single physical machine, and is a practical testbed for scalability testing of a real, enterprise-grade identity management suite. The insights gained into the tested enterprise system were used to enhance its design.