Identifying and documenting test patterns from mobile agent design patterns

Developing and testing mobile agent-based applications are complex tasks that demand appropriate support to cope with mobility as well as usual distributed applications issues. Development approaches have already been proposed, and the use of design patterns has proved to be essential to increase productivity and feasibility. However, testing of mobile agent-based applications has not been extensively investigated. The use of test patterns seems to be a promising approach to test these applications in a cost-effective way. Aiming to promote the use of design patterns together with test patterns, we present an approach to identifying test patterns related to mobile agent design patterns. We also propose a documentation template and an implementation strategy.