Experience in software reliability: From data collection to quantitative evaluation

This paper describes the different steps in software failure data processing in order to monitor the software development and to quantify the operational reliability. Processing consists in (a) filtering the raw data in order to keep only those corresponding to software failures without duplicate, (b) partitioning of data into sub-sets according for instance to failure severity or fault location, (c) performing descriptive analyses, (d) analyzing the trend and (e) when possible and needed, applying reliability growth models. These steps are part of an overall method experienced at LAAS on several real-life software systems. The goals of the paper are twofold: first, present the method and, second, show its benefits through its application to data collected on a switching system.