Determination of test configurations for pair-wise interaction coverage

Systems constructed from components, including distributed systems, consist of a number of elements that interact with each other. As the number of network elements or interchangeable components for each network element increases, the trade off that the system tester faces is the thoroughness of test configuration coverage, versus availability of limited resources (time and budget). An approach to resolving this trade off is to determine a minimal set of test configurations that test each pair-wise combination of components. This goal gives a well-defined, cost-effective level of test coverage, with a reduced number of system configurations. To select such a set of test configurations, we show how to apply the method of covering arrays, and improve on previous results.