Pragmatic Testing Protocols to Measure Software Reliability

This paper investigates four different test protocols based upon the Jelinski-Moranda model of software reliability growth. The main task is to estimate the number of remaining errors in a system at the time of system release. These four protocols are: 1) testing is discontinued after some number of errors has been observed; 2) testing is discontinued at the end of a prescribed period of time; 3) testing is discontinued when a specified amount of time is observed to be completely error free; 4) error checking and debugging is done only by a prespecified time schedule. Two examples with actual failure data illustrate the estimation procedures under different protocols.