Software Reliability Growth Models with Testing-Effort

Abstract

Many software reliability growth models have been proposed in the past decade. Those models tacitly assume that testing-effort expenditures are constant throughout software testing. This paper develops realistic software reliability growth models incorporating the effect of testing-effort. The software error detection phenomenon in software testing is modeled by a nonhomogeneous Poisson process. The software reliability assessment measures and the estimation methods of parameters are investigated. Testing-effort expenditures are described by exponential and Rayleigh curves. Least-squares estimators and maximum likelihood estimators are used for the reliability growth parameters. The software reliability data analyses use actual data. The software reliability growth models with testing-effort can consider the relationship between the software reliability growth and the effect of testing-effort. Thus, the proposed models will enable us to evaluate software reliability more realistically.