TesLA: Enabling multivendor Test Automation

The TesLA (Test Lab Automation) Alliance is an open industry alliance of IP test vendors working together to author, publish, support and implement standards that enable seamless and vendor agnostic Test Lab Automation.

TESLA STANDARDS 1.0 NOW OPEN FOR COMMENT

Tuesday June 23, 2009

On Tuesday June 23rd, the TesLA Alliance (Test Lab Automation) held its second quarterly alliance meeting for 2009 at the Ixia iSimCity facilities in Santa Clara, CA. The meeting was also hosted as a web conference.

The v1.0 draft for two TesLA standards were presented and key decisions were voted in on the standards ratification and certification processes. The meeting was attended by 25 attendees including members and CAB representatives.

A summary of the proceedings is included below:

Agenda:

Provide membership at large, customer advisory board and interested non-members an overview and update of TesLA alliance activities over the past quarter and the roadmap for the next quarter. Key areas covered:

• 4 new members: Onpath Technologies, Packetstorm Communications, Jsystems and MRV Communications
• Marketing committee updates on TesLA activities at Interop, Cisco Toolapalooza and other events in the last quarter
• TesLA Device control adaptor (DCA) and TesLA Testbed, resource management and scheduling (TRS) standards were presented and have now entered into an official ‘review’ cycle.
• Roadmap ahead:
  • The proposed standards to be reviewed and ratified by the member community
  • Members start to develop early reference implementations
  • Self certification event to be held in 2H 09 to ensure standards compliance
  • Continue with existing marketing and membership outreach

TesLA Attendees:

• Customer Advisory Board: F5, HP, Verizon
• Member attendees: Codenomicon, Fanfare Software, Gale Technologies, Ixia, Mu Dynamics, Onpath Technologies, Packetstorm Communications, Qualisystems, MRV Communications, Jsystems,
• Prospects and interested parties were also in attendance over web.

Presentations:

• An update on TesLA activities in past Quarter by Deepesh Arora Click here for entire presentation
• TesLA Marketing Committee update by Adam Stein Click here for presentation
• TesLA overall architecture and DCA Standard Committee update by Cliff Hannel Click here for presentation
• TesLA TRS Standard Committee update by Patrick Deloulay Click here for presentation

Decisions made:

• TesLA Standards Ratification process was voted and agreed upon by all members. Accepted proposal is available on the TesLA Pbworks site. Summary of approved process
  • 30 day initial comment period: An email to be sent to all membership announcing opening of comment period. The proposed TesLA standards will be posted on public website inviting comments
  • Followed by a 15 day freeze period for addressing comments and incorporating revisions.
  • Final draft for ‘voting’ sent out at end of above ‘freeze’ period
  • 15 day voting period. One vote per Member Company.
  • Voting options: approve without comment or disapprove with comment.
  • >75% approval votes = draft acceptance and publish as a accepted standard
• A proposal for TesLA Standards compliance/certification was agreed upon for all members. The proposal is also available on the TesLA Pbworks.
  • Initial TesLA certification will comprise of a "planned testing + plug fest" styled compliance event.
  • The target time frame for this will be October 2009.
  • Certification committee to detail out the event.
  • The event will ‘validate compliance’ of early implementations.
  • Standards committees will publish the compliance matrix and test cases suite to the Certification committee
• Both the Ratification and Certification process will be supervised and arbitrated by special committee comprised of but not limited to:
  • TesLA Executive director
  • TesLA CAB Chair
  • TesLA Marketing Chair
  • TesLA DCA Chair
  • TesLA TRS Chair

Next steps

• All members to send in their ‘designated’ voter for each standard (DCA and TRS currently)
• All members to send in list of their products that will be made TesLA compliant
• All members to confirm their respective early implementations to be made available for compliance event targeted at first week of October 2009.
• Certification committee to publish the details for TesLA compliance event
• Standard’s committee to provide a compliance matrix and publish test cases for compliance testing of products against the standards
• TesLA marketing committee to ensure website infrastructure to support Standards uploaded to public site and comments can be captured