Software Reliability (eBook)

State of the Art Report 14:2

A. Bendell, P Mellor (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: PDF

2014 | 1. Auflage
480 Seiten
Elsevier Science (Verlag)
978-1-4831-5286-8 (ISBN)

Infos

Software Reliability reviews some fundamental issues of software reliability as well as the techniques, models, and metrics used to predict the reliability of software. Topics covered include fault avoidance, fault removal, and fault tolerance, along with statistical methods for the objective assessment of predictive accuracy. Development cost models and life-cycle cost models are also discussed. This book is divided into eight sections and begins with a chapter on adaptive modeling used to predict software reliability, followed by a discussion on failure rate in software reliability growth models. The next chapter deals with methods for predicting and estimating software reliability, with emphasis on their strengths and weaknesses. The reader is methodically introduced to formal inspection in software development; the effects of product design, program structure, development methods, and the environments of product testing and use on product reliability; and types of software metrics in relation to reliability. The remaining chapters explore the ways in which software engineers have sought to achieve software reliability through testing; problems and standards in software reliability data collection; and applications of time series models to software reliability analysis. This monograph will be of interest to software engineers and designers.

Inhalt

Front Cover 1
Software Reliability 4
Copyright Page 5
Table of Contents 6
Foreword 8
Publisher's note 10
Part 1: Invited Papers 12
Chapter 1. Adaptive models 14
Adaptive models 16
Introduction 16
Measuring predictive quality 17
Adaptive modelling 19
Smooth adaptive function 24
Discussion 29
Acknowledgements 29
Chapter 2. Stochastic treatmentof the failure rate in software reliability growth models 30
Stochastic treatment of the failure rate in software reliability growth models 32
Introduction 32
The problem 32
The Jelinski/Moranda model 34
The Littlewood model 35
The Littlewood/Verrall model 38
Discussion 39
Acknowledgements 40
Chapter 3. Software reliability models 42
Software reliability models 44
Introduction 44
Description of methods 45
Theoretical evaluation of methods 54
Acknowledgement 55
Chapter 4. Inspection data 56
Inspection data 58
Introduction 58
Formal inspection 58
The next step in inspection 62
Chapter 5. Program and processproperty models 66
Program and process property models 68
Introduction 68
The management of errors, faults and failures 68
Product faultiness and the design and implementation processes 69
Interactions between products and processes — ongoing research 74
Summary and future work 74
Chapter 6. Relaxation of the common failure rate assumption in modelling software reliability 76
Relaxation of the common failure rate assumption in modelling software reliability 78
Introduction 78
Lindsay's theorem 79
Jelinski/Moranda revisited 80
Criticisms of the Jeninski/Moranda model 82
The Jelinski/Moranda model extended by use of Lindsay's theorem 83
A numerical algorithm 86
Numerical results 89
Chapter 7. A framework for modelling software reliability 92
A framework for modelling software reliability 94
Introduction 94
Stochastic point processes 94
The modelling framework 97
Application to data 101
Conclusions 105
Chapter 8. Types of metric 106
Types of metric 108
Introduction 108
Simple measures 109
The Halstead complexity metrics 110
Control-flow complexity metrics 111
Interface-complexity metrics 111
Dangerous situation-detection metrics 113
Anomaly-detection metrics 113
Chapter 9. Software reliability modelling — prospects and perspective 116
Software reliability modelling —prospects and perspective 118
Introduction 118
Hardware reliability models 119
The relevancy of statistical models as software reliability models 120
Probability statistics and causality in software reliability 123
Chapter 10. Testing for the achievement of software reliability 130
Testing for the achievement of software reliability 132
Introduction 132
Assessment of reliability 133
Achievement of reliability 138
Conclusions 140
Chapter 11. Metrics in practice 142
Metrics in practice 144
Introduction 144
Software development metrics 144
Error counting 146
Size and complexity metrics 147
System evolution 149
Conclusions 155
Chapter 12. Software development cost models 156
Software development cost models 158
Background 158
Overview of software cost model philosophy 158
Current models 167
Research areas for the future 172
Appendix 173
Chapter 13: Software reliability data collection: problems and standards 176
Software reliability data collection: problems and standards 178
Introduction 178
Software reliability measurement: theory and practice 179
Problems with software failure data 181
Standard for software failure data collection 184
Structure of database to contain software failure data 186
Functions to extract sets of reliability data 192
Chapter 14: A non-parametric approach to software reliability, using complete monotonicity 194
A non-parametric approach to software reliability, using complete monotonicity 196
Introduction 196
Reliability growth models and complete monotonicity 196
Problem formulation 197
The optimal solution 199
Monte Carlo data 200
Performance of the non-parametric approach 202
Performance of parametric models 204
Conclusions 206
Acknowledgement 206
Chapter 15: Applications of time series models to software reliability analysis 208
Applications of time series models to software reliability analysis 210
Introduction and overview 210
A Fourier series model for describing software failures 210
A random coefficient autoregressive model for monitoring software reliability growth 212
Ramifications of the random coefficient autoregressive model 216
Comparison of software reliability growth models 217
Conclusion 218
Acknowledgements 218
Chapter 16: An exploratory approach to software reliability measurement 220
An exploratory approach to software reliability measurement 222
Introduction 222
Exploratory data analysis techniques 223
Exploration of software reliability data 223
What data should be explored? 236
Conclusions 238
Chapter 17: Proportional hazards modelling of software failure data 240
Proportional hazards modelling of software failure data 242
Introduction 242
Other modelling techniques 243
Origins of PHM 243
Illustrative example: Musa system 1 245
Applications of PHM in software reliability modelling 246
Conclusions 253
Invited Paper references 254
Part 2: Analysis 276
Chapter 1: Introduction 278
Software reliability: basic concepts,the why and wherefore 280
Definition 280
Why is software reliability achievement important? 282
Why software is unreliable 283
Software reliability versus hardware and system reliability 283
Methods of achieving reliability in software 284
Why is software reliability measurement important? 285
The relationship of reliability to other measures 286
Methods of measuring reliability in software 286
History of softwarereliability modelling 288
Too many similar models 288
Early models 288
'Model wars' 289
Choice of model 291
Common limitations of models 291
New approaches 292
Chapter 2: Achievement of software reliability 294
Overview and management 296
Imperfect software 296
Achievement of software reliability 297
The present view 299
The management contribution to software reliability 301
Formal methods 304
The imprecision of natural language 304
The software development cycle 305
Formal approaches to requirements 306
Formal specification languages 307
Proofs of program correctness 308
Design and code inspections 311
Fault tolerance, testing and other means of achieving reliability 314
Fault tolerance 314
Testing 318
Other means of achieving reliability 320
Conclusion 322
Hardware/software systems 324
The integrated problem 324
Software fault-tree analysis 324
Failure modes and effects analysis 325
Applications 325
Combined hardware/software prediction 327
Chapter 3: Software reliability models 330
Introduction to models 332
Why measure? 332
The fundamental problem 332
Terminology 333
The random nature of software failure 335
How many faults? 336
How to measure 'time' 338
Techniques of parameter estimation 339
Description of individual models 340
Classification of models 340
Early models 340
Later models 344
A unified approach, comparison of models and criticisms 350
A unified approach 350
Comparison of models 352
Conclusion 357
Chapter 4: Relationship to software metrics 358
Relationship to software metrics 360
Introduction 360
The nature of metrics 360
Halstead's Software Science 360
Current state of software metrics 362
Classes of metric 363
Use of metrics 363
Metrics in practice 364
Inspection data 366
Program property models 371
Chapter 5: Costs 376
Development cost models 378
Introduction: costing generally 378
Methods of estimating development cost 378
The Rayleigh curve (and Parr) 382
Criticisms of development cost models 383
Cost models versus reliability models 386
Software life-cycle cost models 388
Mathematical approaches to total life-cycle cost modelling 388
Maintenance cost modelling 390
Chapter 6: Recent developmentsin modelling 394
Recent developments in modelling 396
Adaptive models 396
Distribution-free modelling 397
Entropy models 399
Time series models 400
Proportional hazards modelling 404
The exploratory data analysis approach 407
The 'model-free' approach 410
Application of martingales 411
A plea for simplicity 413
Chapter 7: Data and data problems 416
Data and data problems 418
Published and available data 418
Data collection and reporting systems 420
Chapter 8: Current research initiatives 426
Current research initiatives 428
The Alvey Programme 428
European projects 431
Analysis references 434
Part 3: Bibliography 452
An annotated bibliography of software reliability 454
An annotated bibliography of software reliability 456
Introduction 456
Abstracts 457
The software environment 457
Software measurement and quality control 459
Software verification and validation 460
Software testing and debugging 461
Software fault tolerance 463
Software reliability — theory and classic models 463
Software reliability — theory and practice 465
Software — future developments 468
Keeping up to date — useful journals 469
Reference sources 469
Index 472
Subject and contributor index 474

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.5.2014
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Mathematik / Informatik ► Informatik ► Programmiersprachen / -werkzeuge
• Themenwelt: Mathematik / Informatik ► Informatik ► Theorie / Studium
• Themenwelt: Mathematik / Informatik ► Mathematik
• ISBN-10: 1-4831-5286-3 / 1483152863
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4831-5286-8 / 9781483152868