SystemTest 2.4

Distributing a Test

SystemTest combined with Parallel Computing Toolbox™ allows you to distribute your test to multiple processors. These processors can reside in one multiprocessor computer or, when the toolbox is used with MATLAB® Distributed Computing Server™ (available separately), on a computer cluster. You can distribute Main Test iterations as tasks, which are performed simultaneously by different processors.

To distribute a test, you select a check box in the Distributed tab of the Test Properties pane. You can also define any files that your test depends upon using the File or Path Dependencies tables. No changes to the existing TEST-file or additional lines of code are necessary. When you run a distributed test, the test executes in this way:

• Pre Test runs once on the client machine.
• Main Test iterations execute on the workers.
• Test results are saved at the end of each Main Test iteration and returned to the client machine once all Main Test iterations have finished executing.
• Post Test runs once on the client machine.
• Generated plots are not shown on the client machine while the test runs, but are captured and displayed in the Test Report.

Distributing a test to multiple processors or machines can speed up the total time a test takes to execute. This can enable you to run more test cases in the same amount of time as a test run on one processor.

The SystemTest desktop displaying test results obtained on multiple processors using Distributed Computing Toolbox (available separately). Click on image to see enlarged view.