- Authors:
- Brian Mitchell,
- Steven J. Zeil
A reliability growth model is presented that permits prediction of operational reliability without requiring that testing be conducted according to the operation profile of the program input space. Compared to prior growth models, this one shifts the observed random variable from interfailure time to a post-mortem analysis of the debugged faults, using order statistics to combine the observed failure rates of faults no matter how those faults were detected. Under this model, representative testing can be used early, when the rate of fault revelation is high. As the program becomes more reliable and the rate of fault detection falls, developers can switch to directed (non-representative) testing to increase the rate of fault detection and, consequently, of actual improvement to the software.
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