Error Forecasting & Optimal Stopping Rule under Decreasing Failure Rate

감소(減少)하는 고장률(故障率)하에서 오류예측 및 테스트 시간(時間)의 최적화(最適化)에 관한 연구(硏究)

This paper is concerned with forecasting the existing number of errors in the computer software and optimizing the stopping time of the software test based upon the forecasted number of errors. The most commonly used models have assessed software reliability under the assumption that the software failure late is proportional to the current fault content of the software but invariant to time since software faults are independents of others and equally likely to cause a failure during testing. In practice, it has been observed that in many situations, the failure rate decrease. Hence, this paper proposes a mathematical model to describe testing situations where the failure rate of software limearly decreases proportional to testing time. The least square method is used to estimate parameters of the mathematical model. A cost model to optimize the software testing time is also proposed. In this cost mode two cost factors are considered. The first cost is to test execution cost directly proportional to test time and the second cost is the failure cost incurred after delivery of the software to user. The failure cost is assumed to be proportional to the number of errors remained in the software at the test stopping time. The optimal stopping time is determined to minimize the total cost, which is the sum of test execution cast and the failure cost. A numerical example is solved to illustrate the proposed procedure.