A quasi-renewal process for software reliability and testing costs

Hoang Pham, Hongzhou Wang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

48 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper models software reliability and testing costs using a new tool: a quasi-renewal process, which is introduced at the beginning. It is assumed that the cost of fixing a fault during software testing phase, consists of both deterministic and incremental random parts, increases as the number of faults removed increases. Several software reliability and cost models by means of quasi-renewal processes are derived in which successive error-free times are independent and increasing by a fraction. The maximum likelihood estimates of parameters associated with these models are provided. Based on the valuable properties of quasi-renewal processes, the expected software testing and debugging cost, number of remaining faults in the software, and mean error-free time after testing are obtained. A class of related optimization problem is then contemplated and optimum testing policies incorporating both reliability and cost measures are investigated. Finally, numerical examples are presented through a set of real testing data to illustrate the models results.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)623-631
Number of pages9
JournalIEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Part A:Systems and Humans.
Volume31
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2001

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software
  • Information Systems
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering
  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Computer Science Applications

Keywords

  • Availability
  • Optimal software release time
  • Quasi-renewal processes
  • Software cost model
  • Software reliability

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