Effort based release time of software for detection and correction processes using MAUT

Abstract

The amalgamation of technologies in the information technology sector resulted in unprecedented growth in software reliability modelling in the past four decades. Over the period much attention has been given on developing a fault detection model and then considering fault correction as debugging processes as a complex process in which a detected fault may not immediately be corrected because of manipulation delays and some uncertainties. To overcome these issues academician and industrialists both are working hand in hand to find out the optimal software launch time by minimizing overall testing cost. Through this work, we have developed a unified framework for developing testing effort-based software reliability growth models to optimize the launch time of the software by minimizing the total cost incurred during the software lifecycle and considering fault detection and correction separately. Further, we have used multi-attribute utility theory by considering four attributes viz. cost, the ratio of detected and corrected faults, the ratio of the corrected and total number of faults, total effort utilized to establish the optimum software launch time. The recommended model is authenticated on a real-life software failure data set.