Virtual Machine Emulation for Software Requalification
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Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing complexity and size of application programs in critical systems, such as aircraft and medical equipment, make manual testing challenging, and existing automated testing tools may introduce errors, requiring frequent requalification due to hardware and software changes, which is time-consuming and costly.
Innovation Solution
A method and apparatus using a virtual machine to emulate baseline hardware and software configurations, allowing application testing tools to be qualified once and reused across different hardware configurations, eliminating the need for repeated requalification by verifying the virtual machine's performance against a benchmark.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If application testing tools are qualified on specific hardware configurations, then testing accuracy and reliability are ensured, but requalification becomes time-consuming and costly when hardware changes occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates virtual copies of the original hardware configuration through virtualization technology. These virtual machine instances replicate the baseline hardware and software environment, allowing testing tools to be qualified once on physical hardware and then reused across multiple virtual environments without requalification. This copying approach maintains testing reliability while eliminating repeated requalification requirements.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent establishes a universal qualification framework where a single qualification process on baseline hardware applies across multiple hardware configurations through virtualization. The qualification results become universally applicable to any virtual machine instance derived from the baseline, making the testing tool qualification process multi-functional and configuration-agnostic.
2Productivity
If hardware configurations are updated to improve system performance, then productivity increases, but application testing tools require requalification
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary qualification on baseline hardware configurations before hardware updates occur. By establishing qualification status in advance on representative baseline systems, the qualification results are preserved and applied to future hardware configurations through virtualization, preventing the need for requalification after hardware improvements.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces virtual machine instances as intermediaries between the qualified testing tools and updated hardware configurations. These virtual machines act as a stable layer that decouples the testing tools from physical hardware changes, allowing hardware to evolve while maintaining qualification integrity through the virtualization intermediary.
3Ease of operation
If manual testing methods are used to reduce complexity, then ease of operation improves, but testing completeness and accuracy deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses virtualization to create precise copies of hardware configurations, enabling automated testing tools to operate in controlled, replicated environments. This approach maintains the simplicity of automated execution while ensuring complete and accurate testing through consistent environment replication across multiple virtual instances.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and apparatus for testing application software for installation on hardware platforms. A software tool is verified using a tool qualifier module running on a physical computer system that has a processor of a first processor type and an operating system of a first operating type. A benchmark performance is established for the physical computer system. A virtual machine in a virtual computer system is verified using a qualifier module to determine whether its performance is consistent with the benchmark performance to form a qualified virtual machine. The virtual computer system has a configuration that comprises a processor of a second type; an operating system of a second operating type; the virtual machine emulating the processor of the first processor type; and an operating system of the first operating type. The software tool can be transferred from the physical computer system to the qualified virtual machine without requiring requalification.