Integrating Process Simulation and Reliability Models

www.stsc.hill.af.mil 15 Areliability strategy is a set of software engineering practices defined for each project by combining different reliability achievement and assessment activities and methods, according to the software reliability goal and project’s characteristics. In [1] is a description of a decision-support system for reliability strategy selection based on a set of product, project, and resources decision factors. There are two main approaches to achieving high software reliability: 1. Avoiding defects in the final product. 2. Using fault tolerance methods. Fault avoidance can be achieved by using fault prevention and fault detection and correction methods. Fault tolerance allows the system to continue to operate in the presence of latent faults, enabling the whole system to function as required. Once the reliability strategy is selected, it must be assessed in terms of the projected product reliability, budget, and schedule constraints. One approach for strategy evaluation is process modeling and simulation, which involves analyzing the software development process, creating a model of the process, and then executing the model and simulating the real process. The simulation model presented here is meant to be a tool that supports reliability prediction as well as cost and schedule estimation. It helps the user to forecast the impact of different reliability practices not only on software reliability (effectiveness), but also on cost and development time (efficiency).