Economics of Software Testing Using Discrete Approach

Abstract

In the last few years, researchers have proposed various cost modes to determine the optimal release and testing termination time considering continuous approach. However, it has been shown in the literature that it is better to develop the model by considering the number of test cases executed to remove faults. This is possible by using discrete modelling approach developed in the software reliability literature. There is no evidence of any research work in the direction of separating the release and testing termination using discrete approach. In this work, the authors have developed a discrete framework to determine the optimal release and testing termination under budgetary constraint. Numerical illustration suggests that it is better to release the software after executing lesser number of test cases and continue to execute the test cases during post-release. Also, the proposed total cost is significantly less in comparison to the existing approach using discrete approach.