Specifying Reliability as a Software Attribute.

Abstract

This paper examines come issues in specifying reliability as a software attribute. A scheme for characterizing software reliability, known as a failure profile, is introduced. Failure profiles are derived for particular implementations of an abstraction by identifying analytically the behavior of the module when software or hardware faults occur. A failure profile is developed for a sorting program to demonstrate an informal technique for identifying the consequences of faults. The derived failure profile is compared with observations of the program's behavior in the presence of artificially induced faults to demonstrate the effectiveness of the failure profile characterization of software reliability. The issues raised in the application of the informal technique are discussed with respect to developing a formal and more mechanical technique for producing and using failure profiles. (Author)

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 06, 1982
Accession Number
ADA125934

Entities

People

  • Ivor Durham
  • Mary Shaw

Organizations

  • Carnegie Mellon University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Algorithms
  • Computations
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Science
  • Computers
  • Costs
  • Electronic Mail
  • Environment
  • Errors
  • Experimental Data
  • Failure Mode And Effect Analysis
  • Operating Systems
  • Reliability
  • Specifications
  • Verification
  • Virtual Machines

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Software Engineering
  • Software Engineering.
  • Theoretical Analysis.