Exploring fault types, detection activities, and failure severity in an evolving safety-critical software system

Verfasser / Beitragende:
[Maggie Hamill, Katerina Goseva-Popstojanova]
Ort, Verlag, Jahr:
2015
Enthalten in:
Software Quality Journal, 23/2(2015-06-01), 229-265
Format:
Artikel (online)
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024 7 0 |a 10.1007/s11219-014-9235-5  |2 doi 
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245 0 0 |a Exploring fault types, detection activities, and failure severity in an evolving safety-critical software system  |h [Elektronische Daten]  |c [Maggie Hamill, Katerina Goseva-Popstojanova] 
520 3 |a Many papers have been published on analysis and prediction of software faults and/or failures, but few established the links from software faults (i.e., the root causes) to (potential or observed) failures and addressed multiple attributes. This paper aims at filling this gap by studying types of faults that caused software failures, activities taking place when faults were detected or failures were reported, and the severity of failures. Furthermore, it explores the associations among these attributes and the trends within releases (i.e., pre-release and post-release) and across releases. The results are based on the data extracted from a safety-critical NASA mission, which follows an evolutionary development process. In particular, we analyzed 21 large-scale software components, which together constitute over 8,000 files and millions of lines of code. The main insights include: (1)only a few fault types were responsible for the majority of failures pre-release and post-release, and across releases. Analysis and testing activities detected the majority of failures caused by each fault type. (2)The distributions of fault types differed for pre-release and post-release failures. (3)The percentage of safety-critical failures was small overall, and their relative contribution increased on-orbit. (4)Both post-release failures and safety-critical failures were more heavily associated with coding faults than with any other type of faults. (5)Components that experienced high number of failures in one release were not necessarily among high failure-prone components in the subsequent release. (6)Components that experienced more failures pre-release were more likely to fail post-release, overall and for each release. 
540 |a Springer Science+Business Media New York, 2014 
690 7 |a Software quality assurance  |2 nationallicence 
690 7 |a Fault type  |2 nationallicence 
690 7 |a Detection activity  |2 nationallicence 
690 7 |a Failure severity  |2 nationallicence 
690 7 |a Evolutionary development  |2 nationallicence 
700 1 |a Hamill  |D Maggie  |u Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA  |4 aut 
700 1 |a Goseva-Popstojanova  |D Katerina  |u Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA  |4 aut 
773 0 |t Software Quality Journal  |d Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com  |g 23/2(2015-06-01), 229-265  |x 0963-9314  |q 23:2<229  |1 2015  |2 23  |o 11219 
856 4 0 |u https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-014-9235-5  |q text/html  |z Onlinezugriff via DOI 
898 |a BK010053  |b XK010053  |c XK010000 
900 7 |a Metadata rights reserved  |b Springer special CC-BY-NC licence  |2 nationallicence 
908 |D 1  |a research-article  |2 jats 
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950 |B NATIONALLICENCE  |P 856  |E 40  |u https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-014-9235-5  |q text/html  |z Onlinezugriff via DOI 
950 |B NATIONALLICENCE  |P 700  |E 1-  |a Hamill  |D Maggie  |u Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA  |4 aut 
950 |B NATIONALLICENCE  |P 700  |E 1-  |a Goseva-Popstojanova  |D Katerina  |u Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA  |4 aut 
950 |B NATIONALLICENCE  |P 773  |E 0-  |t Software Quality Journal  |d Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com  |g 23/2(2015-06-01), 229-265  |x 0963-9314  |q 23:2<229  |1 2015  |2 23  |o 11219