Statistical Usage Testing for Software Reliability Control

Software reliability is a frequently used term, but very seldom the reliability is under control during a software development project. This paper presents a method, statistical usage testing (SUT), which gives the possibility to estimate and predict, and hence control software reliability. SUT is the reliability certification method described as a part of Cleanroom software engineering. The main objective of SUT is to certify the software reliability and to find the faults with high influence on reliability. SUT provides statistically based stopping rules during test as well as an effective use of test resources, which is shown by practical application of this and similar methods. This paper presents the basic ideas behind SUT and briefly discusses the theoretical basis as well as the application of the method. III III. Statistical Usage Testing for Software Reliability Control