A Software Cost Model Considering the Difference between Testing Environment and Operating Environment

A difference exists between the software testing environment and operating environment, which has a crucial impact on the software reliability assessment, testing costs and optimal release time. The software cost model is an effective tool used to help software developers control software costs and determine the release time. However, the current studies have not taken the difference of the environment into account, and developers cannot predict the costs and release time accurately. The impact of the environment difference on costs is discussed firstly, and a cost model is established considering the difference between the testing and operating environment. Then we investigate the influence on the costs of software testing when environmental changes. Experimental results show that the cost model proposed here can predict more accurately and be accordant with the practical situation of the software testing.