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Reusing System States by Active Learning Algorithms

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Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 255))

Abstract

In this paper we present a practical optimization to active automata learning that reduces the average execution time per query as well as the number of actual tests to be executed. Key to our optimization are two observations: (1) establishing well-defined initial conditions for a test (reset) is a very expensive operation on real systems, as it usually involves modifications to the persisted state of the system (e.g., a database). (2) In active learning many of the (sequentially) produced queries are extensions of previous queries. We exploit these observations by using the same test run on a real system for multiple “compatible” queries. We maintain a pool of runs on the real system (system states), and execute only suffixes of queries on the real system whenever possible. The optimizations allow us to apply active learning to an industry-scale web-application running on an enterprise platform: the Online Conference Service (OCS) an online service-oriented manuscript submission and review system.

This work is supported by the European FP 7 project CONNECT (IST 231167).

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Bauer, O., Neubauer, J., Steffen, B., Howar, F. (2012). Reusing System States by Active Learning Algorithms. In: Moschitti, A., Scandariato, R. (eds) Eternal Systems. EternalS 2011. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 255. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28033-7_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28033-7_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-28032-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-28033-7

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