Software Reliability

The task of improving software reliability for large systems is becoming more difficult due to the highly-distributed nature of current products, and their deployment on dissimilar platforms with complex service functionalities. This coupled with increasing software complexities and large software size requires a very different approach in assessing software reliability.

Outage study of telecommunication, aerospace, and other large systems show that most failures are software related, followed by procedural errors and hardware failures. Prediction of hardware failures is much more straightforward while prediction of software failures is more complex.

Capabilities

Use of sophisticated Software Reliability Engineering (SRE) tools and techniques to predict the reliability of software products before they are released. This can help an organization in accessing the impact of defects on scheduled releases and establish timelines for "when to stop testing"

Use of software architecture analysis to study the current software architecture of products and processes with evolution plans for enhancing the software reliability of newer products with minimal impact on existing products

A highly researched methodology that studies the software fault recovery mechanisms of a product. This methodology establishes best mechanisms for software fault reporting, including fault data, and error recording schemas.

Specialized software tools are used to isolate risky software modules, followed by proposal of customized methodologies best suited for updating and controlling software reliability of risky modules.