Distributed functional and load tests for Web services

System-level testing considers functionality and load aspects to check how a system performs for single service requests and scales as the number of service requests accessing/using it increases. This paper presents a flexible test framework including functional, service interaction and load tests. It is generic in terms of being largely independent of the system to be tested. The paper discusses the automation of the test framework with the Testing and Test Control Notation TTCN-3 and also presents an implementation of the test framework using a TTCN-3 toolset. The test framework is exemplified for Web service tests and demonstrates distributed functional and load tests for a specific Web service.