OPTIMAL SOFTWARE SHIPPING TIME ESTIMATION BASED ON A CHANGE-POINT HAZARD RATE MODEL

Abstract

Software failure-occurrence or the fault-detection phenomenon is changed notably in an actual testing phase or an operational phase due to the changes of factors influencing the software reliability growth process. Taking into consideration of the effect of the change in software reliability growth modeling is expected to conduct more accurate software reliability assessment because it is said that such approach enables us to conduct more plausible software reliability assessment reflecting an actual testing-environment. We develop a framework for developing software hazard rate models with effect of change-point, and discuss change-point detection methods for applying our model to quantitative software reliability assessment. Additionally, we discuss an optimal software release problem for estimating optimal shipping time with the effect of the change as one of the application problems of our model in software project management. Finally, we show numerical examples for software reliability assessment and our optimal software release policy based on our change-point model by using actual data.