Effect of disturbances on the convergence of failure intensity

We report a study to determine the impact of four types of disturbances on the failure intensity of a software product undergoing system test. Hardware failures, discovery of a critical fault, attrition in the test team, are examples of disturbances that will likely affect the convergence of the failure intensity to its desired value. Such disturbances are modeled as impulse, pulse, step, and white noise. Our study examined, in quantitative terms, the impact of such disturbances on the convergence behavior of the failure intensity. Results from this study reveal that the behavior of the state model, proposed elsewhere, is consistent with what one might predict. The model is useful in that it provides a quantitative measure of the delay one can expect when a disturbance occurs.