The DOI matches its Crossref record; 28 of the 28 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
A Taxonomy of Integration-Relevant Faults for Microservice Testing
Open accessAbstract
Microservices have emerged as a popular architectural paradigm, offering a flexible and scalable approach to software development. However, their distributed nature and diverse technology stacks introduce inherent complexities, surpassing those of monolithic systems. The integration of microservices presents numerous challenges, from communication failures to compatibility issues, compromising system reliability. Understanding faults in these distributed components is crucial for preventing defects, devising test strategies, and implementing robustness testing. Despite the significance of these software systems, existing taxonomies are limited, as they primarily focus on non-functional attributes or lack empirical validation. To address these gaps, this paper proposes an extensive taxonomy of the most common integration-relevant faults observed in large-scale microservice systems in industry. Leveraging insights from a systematic literature review and ten semi-structured interviews with industry experts, we identify common integration-related faults encountered in real-world microservice projects. Our final taxonomy was validated through a survey with an additional set of 16 practitioners, confirming that almost all fault categories (21/23) were experienced by at least 50% of the survey participants.
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Cited by
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Metadata
- Authors
- Gregor, L., Hentschel, A., Kastner, L., & Pretschner, A.
- Affiliations
- Technical University of Munich (DE)
- Siemens (Germany) (DE)
- Venue
- 2025 IEEE Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST)
- Publisher
- IEEE
- Published
- 2025-03-31
- Pages
- 138-149
- OpenAlex
- W4410536988
- Semantic Scholar
- 8b0bb5f7697ed162c66ac07f354e9c094e8591d4
- Cited by
- 5
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 2
- FWCI
- 3.89
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- mediatum.ub.tum.de
- Locations
- IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST) (publishedVersion)
- mediaTUM (Technical University of Munich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Software System Performance and Reliability
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Software › Software Testing and Debugging Techniques
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Techniques and Practices
- Keywords
- microservices, fault classification, distributed systems, robustness testing, communication breakdown, compatibility issues, software reliability
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