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Software Engineering Requirement Analysis

Software engineering Requirement analysis

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30 views9 pages

Software Engineering Requirement Analysis

Software engineering Requirement analysis

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sajnabegom147
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© © All Rights Reserved
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CHAPTER 1] ——eee, SOFTWARE RELIABILITY AND QUALITY MANAGEMENT Reliability of a software product is an important concern for most users. Users not only want the products they purchase to be highly reliable, but for certain categories of products they may even require a quantitative guarantee on the reliability of the product before making their buying decision. This may especially be true for safety-critical and embedded software products. However, as we discuss in this chapter, it is very difficult to accurately measure the reliability of any software product. One of the main problems encountered while quantitatively measuring the reliability of a software product is the fact that reliability is observer-dependent. ‘That is, different groups of users may arrive at different reliability estimates for the same product. Besides this, several other problems (such as frequently changing reliability values due to bug corrections) make accurate measurement of the reliability of a software product difficult. We investigate these issues in this chapter. Even though no metric to accurately measure the reliability of a software product exists, we shall discuss some metrics that are being used at present to quantify the reliability of a software product. We shall also address the problem of reliability growth modelling and examine how to predict when (and if at all) a given level of reliability will be achieved. We shall also examine the statistical testing approach to reliability estimation. In this chapter, we shall also discuss various issues associated with Software Quality Assurance (SQA). Software Quality Assurance (SQA) has emerged as one of the most talked about topics in recent years in software industry circles. The major aim of SQA is to help an organization develop high quality software products in a repeatable manner. A software development organi- zation can be called repeatable when its software development process is person-independent. That is, the success of a project does not depend on who exactly are the team members of the project. Besides, the quality of the developed software and the cost of development are important issues addressed by SQA. In this chapter, we first discuss a few important issues concerning software reliability measurement and prediction before starting our discussion on software quality assurance. gonware Reliability 371 is as it nd SOFTWARE RELIABILITY ability of a software product essent The igernatively; the reliability of a go ity een working correctly over of we aitively it is obvious that a sof fware product having a large number of defects is un- aiable. It is also very reasonable to assume that the reliabili © wamber of defects in it is reduced. Tt would have been very nice if we could mathematically yo acterize this relationship between reliability and the number of bugs present in the system sing ‘a simple closed form “xpression. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to characterize the peered reliability of a system in terms the number of latent defects in the system using ° simple mathematical expression. To get an insight into this issue, consider the following. removing errors from those parts of a software product that are very infrequently executed, makes little difference to the Perceived reliability of the Product. It has been experimentally observed by analyzing the behaviour of a large number of prograins thee 90% of the execution time of a typical program is Spent in executing only 10% of the instructions in the program. The most used 10% instructions are often called the core’ of a program. The rest 90% of the program statements are called non-core and are on the average executed only for 10% © may not be very surprising to note that removing 60% product defects from the least used parts of a system would typically result in only 3% improvement to the product reliability. It is clear that the quantity by which the overall relia- bility of a program improves due to the correction of a single error depends on how frequently the instruction having the error is executed. If an error is removed from an instruction that is frequently executed (i.e. belonging to the core of the Program), then this would show up as a large improvement to the reliability figure. On the other hand, removing errors from parts of the program that are rarely used, may not. cause any appreciable change to the reliability of the product. {ally denotes its trustworthiness or dependabil- oftware Product can also be defined as the probability # given period of time. of a software product. For example, for a library automation software the library members ‘ould use functionalities such as issue book, search book, ete. on the other hand, the librarian would normally execute features such as create member, create book record, delete: member teord, ete. So defects which show up for the librarian, may not show up for the members, Suppose the functions of a Library Automation Software which the library members use are Sror-free; and functions used by the librarian have many bugs, ‘Then, these two categories of users would have very different opinions about the reliability of the software. Therefore, the reliability figure of a software product is observer-dependent, and it is very difficult to absolutely quantify the reliability of the product. (i? Miereaiah Che Cary a en ay commonly available tool called a Profiler. On Unix platforms, a tool called prof is normally available for this purpose. i a a Software Reliability and Quality Manage, Software HA r _— 23 above discussions, we can summarize the maip reasons Chiat make sofyyg Ware Based on the « the ¢ than hardware reliability reliability more diffieult to measur © The reliability Improvement due to fixing # single bug depends on where the uy iy located in the code. « The perceived reliability of a $0 «The reliability of a product keeps cl In the following subsection, we shall discuss why software reliability measurement iy 4 harder problem than hardware reliability measurement, fiware product is observer-dependent. | hhanging as errors are detected and fixed. 11.1.1. Hardware versus Software Reliability ‘An important characteristic feature that sets hardware and software reliability issues apart is the difference between their failure patterns. fo very different reasons as compared to software components, Hardware components fail mostly due to wear and tear, whereas software components fail due Hardware components fail due t to bugs. ‘A logic gate may be stuck at 1 or 0, or a resistor might short circuit, To fix a hardware fault, one has to either replace or repair the failed part. In contrast, a software product would continue to fail until the error is tracked down and either the design or the code is changed to fix the bug. For this reason, when 8 hardware part is repaired, ite reliability would be maintained at the level that existed before the failure occurred; whereas when a software failure is repaired, the reliability may either increase or decrease (reliability may decrease if « bug fix introduces new errors).,To put this fact in a different perspective, hardware reliability study is concerned with stability (for example, the inter-failure times remain constant). On the other hand, the aim of software reliability study would be reliability growth (that is, increase in inter-failure times). ‘A comparison of the changes in failure rate over the product lifetime for a typical hardware product as well as a software product are sketched in Figure 11.1. Observe that the plot of change of reliability with time for hardware component [Figure 11.1(a)] appears like a bath tub. For a software component the failure rate is initially high, but decreases as the faulty components are identified are either repaired or replaced. The system then enters its useful life, where the rate of failure is almost constant. After some time (called product lifetime) the major components wear out, and the failure rate increases. The initial failures are usually covered through manufacturer's warranty. A corollary of this observation (though a digression from our topic of discussion) is that it may be unwise to buy a product (even at a good discount to its face value) towards the end of its lifetime. That is, one need not feel happy to buy a ten year old car at one tenth of the price of a new car, since it would be near the rising edge of the bath tub curve, and one would have to spend unduly large time, effort, and money on repairing and end up as the loser, In contrast to the hardware products, the software product show the highest failure rate just after purchase and installation (see the initial portion of the plot in Figure 11.1 (b)]. As the system is used, more and more errors are identified and removed resulting in reduced failure rate, This error removal continues at a slower pace during the -—aaaaacamaammaaaiaiaa | — 373 spe product. AS the software beco mes obsolete eins t no . tet ee remains unchanged. Mote error cortection occurs (2) Hardware product Figure 11.1: Change in failure rate of a product, vai Metrics réiability requirements for different categories of software Products may be different. For i necessary that the level of reliability required for a software product should in the SRS (software requirements specification) ) document. In order to be able to Hits, we heed some metrics to quantitatively express the reliability of a software product. 4 god reliability measure should be observer-independent, so that ; different people can agree za the degree of reliability a system has. However, in practice, it is very difficult to formulate smetric using which precise reliability measurement would be possible. In the absence of such seasures, we discuss six metrics that correlate with reliability as follows: 4, Rate of OCcurrence Of Failure (ROCOF). ROCOF measures the frequency of oc- currence of failures. ROCOF measure of a software product can be ol observing the behaviour Of a Software product in operation over a specified time interval and then calculating the ROCOF value as the ratio of the total number of failures observed and the duration of observation. However, many software products do not run continuously unlike @ car or a mixer), but deliver certain service when a demand is placed on them. For example, a library software is idle until a book issue request is made. Therefore, for 2 typical software product such as a payroll software, applicability of ROCOF is very iatied. 2 Mean Time To Failure (MTTF).{MTTF is the time between two successive failures, averaged over a large number of failures. To measure MTTF, we can record the failure dota for n failures. Let the failures occur at the time instants ty, t2, ...,tn- Then, MTTF can be calculated as 77. aa It is important to note that only rin time is considered in the time measurements. That is, the time for which the system is down to fix the “ror, the boot time, etc. are not taken into account in the time measurements and the clock is stopped’ at these times. Software Reliability and a74 2 / Managemen, rime spair (MTTR).(Once failure occurs, some time aerate Peale (MEST) Oe eee failure and to fix the s — we MT'TF and MTTR metric, Betweon Failure (MTBF). The MT’ sg » ee a5 oe the MTBF metric: MTBP=MTTF4MTTR. Thus, MTBF of 30) hon” i Rates, that once a failure occurs, the next failure is expected after 300 hours, In this tase, the time meas ts are real time and not the execution time as in MTTR, 5. Probability Of Failure On Demand (POFOD).(nlike the other metries di is Fequired to gy CTOs causing the this metric does not explicitly involve time measurements. POFOD measures i hood of the system Tailing when a service request Is made) For example, a ss : of 8.001 would mean that T out of every 1000 service Feqaestd would result in a failure, We have already mentioned that the reliability of a software product should be determines through specific service invocations, rather than making the software run continuously, Thus, POFOD metric is very appropriate for software products that are not required to run continuously. 6, Availability. Availability of a system is « measure of how likely would the system Te available for use over a given period of time. This metric not only iders the nuitiber of failures. occurring during a time interval, but also takes into account the repair tine (down time) of a system when a failure occurs) This metric is im portant for systems such ‘as telecommunication systems, and-operating systems, and embedded controllers, ete. which are supposed to be never down and where repair and restart time are significant and loss of service during that time cannot be overlooked. All the above reliability metrics suffer from se software reliability measurement is concerned. One of the reasons is that these metrics are centred around the probability of occurrence of system failures, but take no account of the consequences of failures. That is, these reliability models do not distinguish the telative sever- ity of different failures. Failures which are transient and whose consequences are not serious are in practice of little concern in the operational use of a software product. These types of failures can at best be minor irritants. On the other hand, more severe types of failures may render the system totally unusable. In order to estimate the reliability of a software product more accurately, it is necessary to classify various types of failures. Please note that the dif. ferent classes of failures may not be mutually exclusive. The classification is based on widely different set of criteria. As a result, a failure type can at the same time belong to more than / ohe class, A scheme of classification of failures is as follows: \LAransient: Transient failures occur only for certain input values while invoking a function of the system, i ‘veral shortcomings as far as their ‘use in * “ermanent: Permanent failures occur for all input values while invoking a function of the 3-Recoverable: When a recoverable failure occurs, the system can recover without having is ks and restart the system (with or without operator intervention). nrecoverable. In unrecoverable failures, the system may need to be restarted. lla aii vy ns | aware Reliability 1 we ' wie eee 3 Reliability Growth Modelling yl bility growth model is a mathematical anh oe anion model of how software reliability improves as eros

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