Specialist Task Force 533:  TTCN-3 Evolution 2017

Who we are:

What we do

STF 533 manages the evolution of the TTCN-3 in 2017. This includes the maintenance and further development of the ES 201 873 series of standards and the seven extension packages ES 202 781, ES 202 782, ES 202 784, ES 202 785, ES 202 786, ES 202 789, and ES 203 022.

Maintenance and further development of TTCN-3 has been an ongoing TC MTS task for more than a decade. In the last years, TC MTS has recognized an increasing demand for:

• The harmonization of language concepts including a clean-up of TTCN-3 from superfluous features and make a consistency check.
• Adding sophisticated features for application and test framework development including the introduction of consistent object oriented concepts.

Due to these needs, STF 533 will also work on TTCN-3 language harmonization and develop a new TTCN-3 language extension on “Object-oriented features”.

For more details, see our Terms of Reference

Why we do it

The TTCN 3 testing language has intensively been developed by ETSI during the last decade and, by today, it consists of 14 ETSI standards, altogether more than 1400 pages. The language is also endorsed by ITU-T as the Z.16x and Z.17x Recommendation series. By now TTCN-3 is the prevalent formal specification language of standardized test suites and has also become an important testing technology at various ETSI member companies and in several industrial domains s (http://www.ttcn-3.org/index.php/about/references/applicatio-domains) and standards organizations (http://www.ttcn-3.org/index.php/about/references).

TTCN-3 has an important role in standardization; it is an enabler technology in many areas. Several conformance and end-to-end/interoperability test standards have been developed and being developed by 3GPP, ETSI TBs INT, ERM, and ITS. 3GPP is using TTCN 3 for UE conformance tests from Rel. 8 and onward to LTE and VoLTE, with NB IoT on horizon. In the ITS area also several TTCN-3 test suites have been developed and they start playing important roles in ITS Plugtest events as well. In 2016 oneM2M has started using it for IoT/M2M conformance test development.

TTCN-3 fulfills an important role in the industry. The customers of ETSI industrial members require low time to market of newly developed capabilities and features. Due to this, vendors introduced new, agile ways of working as well as a continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) machinery. Both agile and CI/CD are heavily relying on automated testing (AT), including AT solutions based on TTCN-3. Development of new products raises new TTCN-3 language requirements and requests for new features. Resolving these requests with short response time is important for user satisfaction and to keep low time-to-market for new capabilities and features being developed. Performance and robustness, and security testing are also of increasing importance and TTCN-3 is used at some ETSI member companies in these areas as well. 

During the last years several change requests from 3GPP, industrial users and TTCN-3 tool vendors could be resolved and closed in a shortest possible time period due to the fact that a TTCN-3 language evolution STF was available.

TC MTS is committed to keep the language powerful even so easy-to-use, up-to-date, well maintained and following the changing user needs. Also today 3 further parts of the TTCN-3 standards family are being developed and users request more extensions to ease test framework and test application (i.e. performance and security testing tools) development.

How we do it

The TTCN-3 language evolution work will comprise the following tasks:

• Review and resolve change requests reporting technical defects, or requesting clarifications and new language features for all existing TTCN-3 language standards.
• Develop proposals for language extensions requested by 3GPP, OMA, ETSI members and the TTCN-3 community and consent the solution with the contributor(s).
• Implement agreed solutions.
• Manage the change request (CR) process.
• Manage the interim versions of the standard, according to 3GPP needs, and the versions for approval.
• Present the TTCN-3 standards’ status and the work of the STF at the conference(s) associated with ETSI TB MTS and at ETSI TB MTS meetings

Deliverables

The maintenance and further development of TTCN-3 is based on change requests provided by 3GPP, OMA, ETSI members and the TTCN-3 community. STF 533 resolves the CRs in agreement with the contributor(s) and produces new versions for those standards that are affected by resolutions. Potentially, STF 533 produces new versions of the ES 201 873 series of standards and the six extension packages ES 202 781, ES 202 782, ES 202 784, ES 202 785, ES 202 786, ES 202 789, and ES 203 022. In addition, STF 533 will address TTCN-3 language harmonization and develop a new TTCN-3 extension package on “Object oriented features”.

Time plan

For all deliverables produced by STF 533 except the TTCN-3 extension on “Object oriented features” the following time schedule is planned:

• Stable Draft 31-Dec-2017
• Draft for approval 28-Feb-2018
• TB approval MTS#73 (first MTS meeting in 2018)
• ​Publication 30-June 2018

• Stable Draft 28-Feb-2018
• Draft for approval 30-June 2018
• ​TB approval MTS#74 (second MTS meeting in 2018)
• ​Publication 30-Sept 2018

How to contact us

For further details, or if you wish to be involved in the work of the STF, please contact the STF Leader: Jens Grabowski