This does not test that the association was kept intact. The ping will always succeed, because the remoting recreates the association if needed. TestTransport, which is used in RemotingSpec has a facility that you can use to test if an association is present or not, or whether an association setup attempt has been made. You can even register an interceptor that will fail the test when associate is called. (You should look into SwitchableLoggedBehavior and the associateBehavior in TestTransport).