Customer Reviews

Software Reliability Engineering

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book takes Mr. Musa's out-of-print classic, Software Reliability: Measurement, Prediction, Application, to the next level. Where his first book spawned an entire body of knowledge and approach to software reliability, this one adds a structured process and extends the foundation provided by the original book into a discipline that is practiced by mature organizations.

The process, called SRET or software reliability engineered testing, is six-step model comprised of the following steps:

(1) List associated systems - includes base products and variations to identify scope and coverage.

(2) Develop operational profiles - break the system down into logical tasks and rate of occurrence (expressed as probabilities)

(3) Define "just right" reliability - this is the tough part and is thoroughly covered. The essential elements of this step include: determining failure (discrepancy between system behavior and user requirements) and faults (system implementation defects that trigger failures). You next determine the "just right" level of reliability by determining a strategy for measuring failure intensities. This is done by computing a failure intensity objective (FIO) for each system. Brush up on probability and statistics for this step because it is performed using hard quantitative methods.

(4) Prepare for testing - this is the traditional approach employing a test plan and associated test cases, with a distinct difference: the test cases are tied to operational profiles, breaking down a complex process into manageable elements. The more complex the software being tested the more manageable the test process becomes using this structured approach.

(5) Execute test - the book provides detailed information on product testing (also known as user acceptance testing and called "feature testing" in this book), load and regression testing. This full suite of testing types is excellent and shows the detail with which Mr. Musa approaches reliability and quality.

(6) Guide test - this final step in the SRET covers both test and release management. There is much more to this step than simple test management, it also covers continuous metrics gathering and failure prediction.

Also included are a chapter on software reliability models and a template for deploying SRET.

This book differs from Mr. Musa's earlier book in one significant way: it transforms the theoretical approach given in Software Reliability: Measurement, Prediction, Application into a practical approach that can be implemented as a process. The core material from the first book is included in this one, with refinements that have evolved since Mr. Musa's 1987 classic. It merits 5 stars and is essential reading for developers and SQA professionals who design and build mission- or safety-critical applications.

Great book, provides you with fundamentals and advanced of Sw Reliabilty Testing concepts, definitions, examples.
I found it very useful to better understand Sw Testing; my suggestion is to tailor the author's approach, which could seem in some cases heavy to deploy, to your own needs.
Should be part of your background, especially if you work in a testing group.

Sadly, Dr. Musa has passed away. His classic on software reliability has helped shape the field. I purchased it and it is a good reference book for the subject.