Software quality assurance in the National Water Information System

Abstract

The U.S. Geological Survey's automated information system's software for processing, storing, and retrieving water data is developed and maintained by the National Water Information System Program of the Water Resources Division. As part of that responsibility, a new system is currently being designed to replace the systems that run on a mainframe computer located at headquarters in Reston, Vz., and on minicomputers located in Division offices across the Nation. The new system is to run on workstations and file servers to be installed in all of the Division offices. A software life cycle provides the framework for defining, developing, and maintaining the new software system and for helping to meet software development challenges. Soft*'are quality assurance is needed in building the new system to provide confidence that the software is engineered to meet users' needs and conforms to established technical requirements. Successful software quality assurance depends on the application of uniform terminology and effective communication among users, developers, and managers. Software quality control is a planned and systematic process that focuses on establishing software standards and procedures, reviews and inspections, testing, and software configuration management throughout the software life cycle. This report explains the background for software quality assurance and the implementation of software quality assurance and quality control in the National Water Information System Program using a generic workbench approach, and presents an example workbench for the requirements-analysis phase of the software life-cycle.