Generalized multi‐release modelling of software reliability growth models from the perspective of two types of imperfect debugging and change point

Abstract

AbstractOwing to release of software in multiple releases, code changes take place in software. Because of this added complexity in software, the testing team may be unable to correct the fault upon detection, leaving the actual fault to reside in the software, termed as imperfect debugging or there may be replacement of original fault by other fault, leading to error generation. Many other factors exist that affect the testing phase of software like strategies of testing, test cases, skill, efficiency, and learning of testing team. All these factors cannot be kept stable during the whole process of testing. They may change at any time moment causing the background processes to experience change, which is known as change‐point. Keeping all these critical testing environment factors under consideration, a new software reliability growth model has been proposed, which is derived from an non homogenous Poisson process (NHPP)based unified scheme for multi‐release two‐stage fault detection/observation and correction/removal software reliability models. The developed model is numerically illustrated on tandem data set for four releases.