Rational TTCN Suite

Features and benefits

IBM® Rational® TTCN Suite, the de facto standard environment for compliance testing of communicating systems, is used worldwide to test telecommunications and data communications equipment ranging from built-in communication chips to huge switches and intelligent network services. The test script language of TTCN Suite, TTCN-2, is a widespread, dedicated test programming language for compliance testing and is standardized by ETSI and ISO.

Modern, graphical editor

The Rational TTCN editor is a modern, graphical editor for TTCN-2 test scripts. It includes a powerful help system and an analyzer for full syntactic and static semantic checks of your test scripts. The editor includes import and export facilities to help you take advantage of numerous, ready-made test suites. TTCN test scripts are available for many protocols, including ATM, ISDN, GSM, and DECT.

Debugging of test suites

Rational TTCN Suite includes a broad tool set for debugging your test suites. IBM Rational TTCN Exerciser is an efficient tool for exercising the TTCN-2 code either interactively or with data imported from a file. The TTCN code can either be exercised solely on the host or against a target through a lightweight adaptation. This tool provides useful features such as timer simulation, on-line or post-processed MSC log files, a very effective scripting language for regression testing, simulated observation, and control points as well as dynamic error detection.

Co-simulate and test your system design

IBM® Rational® SDL and TTCN Integrated Simulator allows execution of a TTCN test suite in a host environment. The system under test can be either a simulated SDL system when used in conjunction with Rational SDL Suite, or a simple test management platform when used in conjunction with the TTCN Integrated Simulator. When used with design tools, test coverage is presented graphically at the SDL design level. Due to the portability of TTCN, the same test scripts can later be imported into external test equipment for testing of your finished product.

Automatically generate test suites from your specifications

TTCN Suite is complemented with tools for editing, simulating, and compiling SDL and MSC designs. A central part of the entire TTCN tool suite is the SDL-to-TTCN Link, which allows automatic test case generation from SDL specifications. This enables the developer to check the consistency of his final application with the original specifications - a very powerful feature in complex system development.

Compile to low-level languages

The TTCN compiler offers automatic translation from TTCN-2 to ANSI C. The code produced is independent of the target operating system and protocol. The compiled code with any additional adaptation code is what actually runs when the tests are executed.

ASN.1 BER/PER encoding and decoding

Available for both the Rational SDL and Rational TTCN Suite, this popular feature enables you to convert the abstract ASN.1 data format to an actual bitstream. The tool supports the most common rule sets, the Basic Encoding Rules (BER) as well as the 3G standard Basic Unaligned PER (Packed Encoding Rules).
This utility can save development teams invaluable time during the testing and deployment of real-time systems in mixed environments. It also allows you to use the encoding engine to create custom encoding and decoding rules.

TCP/IP communication module

This feature offers built-in TCP/IP socket communication as well as standard system timer implementations. It can greatly simplify testing of systems across a TCP/IP network. Combined with the encoding and decoding support of TTCN Suite, this feature helps reduce the manual work needed when translating portable test scripts to executable code suitable for testing real systems.

The TCP/IP Communication Module is built on the Adaptation Communication Module (ACM), a framework with plug-in modules for protocols and timers. TTCN Suite is delivered with plug-ins for:

TCP/IP communication
Standard system-time timer

With the Adaptation Communication Module, TTCN Suite is approaching 'plug and play' technology for target-independent test generation.

Integrate with your test environment

In order to be executable, the compiled C code must be linked to a library containing the necessary operating system functions. To facilitate this, TTCN Suite follows a standardized set of functions that simplifies integration between the TTCN test scripts and the larger system and - most importantly - separates TTCN behavior from the protocol and specific code of the test equipment.

If you want to jump-start your testing procedure, a number of vendors have chosen to integrate TTCN Suite as the front-end to their test equipment. Leading suppliers, including Clemessy, HP, Tektronix, TEMEX, and WG-STS can provide you with turnkey solutions for editing, simulating, and compiling TTCN test suites on their test instruments.

Full development cycle IBM® Rational® DOORS® integration

IBM Rational SDL Suite and IBM Rational TTCN Suite offer a complete IBM Rational DOORS integration, which can help you easily synchronize your work with the requirements documents when new requirements have been added, or if design elements have been added or deleted. The DOORS integration in SDL Suite and TTCN Suite helps you trace requirements across the full development cycle from analysis to test: It can be easier to check that a particular requirement has been covered by SDL design, MSC simulation scenarios, and finally TTCN test cases.