APPLICATION TESTING USING SANDBOXES

• US 20120331441A1
• Filed: 06/24/2011
• Published: 12/27/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent Telecom Limited (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Adamson, Kevin S.
• Granted Patent: US 8,799,862 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/102
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3664 Environments for testing or debugging software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066

Abstract

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method and related network node including one or more of the following: determining, by the session establishment node, that a session should be established for the developer; transmitting, to a sandbox server, an instruction to establish a sandbox for the session; transmitting to the sandbox server, an identification of an emulator associated with the session; and notifying the developer when the sandbox is available for use. Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method and related network node including one or more of the following: receiving, by the sandbox server, an instruction to establish a sandbox; establishing the sandbox on the sandbox server; and instantiating a device emulator on the sandbox.

Claims

1. A method performed by a session establishment node for providing a sandbox to a developer, the method comprising:

determining, by the session establishment node, that a session should be established for the developer;

transmitting, to a sandbox server, an instruction to establish a sandbox for the session;

transmitting to the sandbox server, an identification of an emulator associated with the session; and

notifying the developer when the sandbox is available for use.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of transmitting to the sandbox server, an identification of an emulator associated with the session comprises transmitting the device emulator to the sandbox server.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising transmitting a second device emulator to the sandbox server, wherein the device emulator and the second device emulator emulate different types of devices.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting a test tool associated with the session to the sandbox server.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining that a session should be established for the developer comprises:

receiving, by the session establishment node from the developer, a request for a session;

scheduling the establishment of the session in association with a time slot; and

determining, based on a current time and the time slot, that the session should be established for the developer.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the sandbox server is associated with a cloud computing architecture.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of notifying the developer that the sandbox is available for use includes transmitting a uniform resource locator (URL) for accessing the sandbox.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the session establishment node and the cloud server are different physical devices.

9. A method performed by a sandbox server for providing a sandbox to a developer, the method comprising:

receiving, by the sandbox server, an instruction to establish a sandbox;

establishing the sandbox on the sandbox server; and

instantiating a device emulator on the sandbox.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising instantiating a second device emulator on the sandbox, wherein the device emulator and the second device emulator emulate different types of devices.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising instantiating a test tool on the sandbox.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of establishing the sandbox comprises reserving cloud resources for use by the developer.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

receiving application code from the developer; and

configuring the device emulator to run the application code.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising managing the distribution of processing resources among a plurality of sandboxes.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising providing a user interface to the developer, wherein the user interface enables the developer to:

transmit commands to the device emulator, and

transmit commands to at least one test tool.

16. A method performed by a developer device for testing an application, the method comprising:

transmitting, to a session establishment node, a request for a sandbox;

receiving a notification that the developer device may access the sandbox at a sandbox server; and

transmitting, to the sandbox server, a request to access the sandbox.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the session establishment node and the sandbox server are different physical devices.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the request for a sandbox includes an indication of at least one requested device emulator and at least one requested testing tool.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising transmitting application code to the sandbox server.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the step of transmitting a request to access the sandbox comprises accessing a web user interface.