A method proposal for early software reliability estimation

Presents a method proposal for estimation of software reliability before the implementation phase. The method is based upon a formal description technique and that it is possible to develop a tool for performing dynamic analysis, i.e. locating semantic faults in the design. The analysis is performed by applying a usage profile as input as well as doing a full analysis, i.e. locating all faults that the tool can find. The tool must provide failure data in terms of time since the last failure was detected. The mapping of the dynamic failures to the failures encountered during statistical usage testing and operation is discussed. The method can be applied either on the software specification or as a step in the development process by applying it on the design descriptions. The proposed method allows for software reliability estimations that can be used both as a quality indicator, and also for planning and controlling resources, development times etc. at an early stage in the development of software systems