FTF Context

Introduction

The FLUX project has produced a number of standards covering different information domains (Fishing Activity, Vessel position…) and each of these standards can have a number of implementation documents defining the rules for different report regimes (EU, Norway, NEAFC….). Bellow we outline a proposal on how to produce a test framework of the business rules defined in the implementation documents for each of these standards. 

The benefits of collaboratively producing a test framework are multiple but the main benefit is that all parties will share a common understanding on how the business rules should be interpreted, which in turn increase the quality of communication an minimises the manual effort going into correcting and investigating data. 

Context of reference

All parties connected to the FLUX network has a FLUX Transport Layer node. This node delivers data from and send information to other parties within in the FLUX network via the FLUX central node.

Implementations of FLUX standards are realised locally and connects to the local FLUX node as endpoints. These endpoints receives and/or sends data. In the FLUX protocol, each standard has a unique name called data-flow. The data-flow name, besides revelling the standard also tells which version of the standard is used. 

Proposal

We propose an automated report based approach to testing. The idea is to allow the testing tool to mimic a FLUX TL and send test messages to the FLUX TL hosting the data-flow/standard being tested. After the test has been initiated a result report should be produced, clearly indicating any rules that has been verified as correct/incorrect. Utilising the data-flow name within this context has great value, indeed introducing a “test” data-flow name will allow for verification of business rules in an production environment but still being able to detect that it is a test (no need to persist data) as an example :

urn:un:unece:uncefact:data:standard:FLUXVesselPositionMessage:4

urn:un:unece:uncefact:data:standard:FLUXVesselPositionMessage:4:test

From a FLUX TL endpoint perspective