QW2001 Tutorial C2

Dr. John D. Musa
(Consultant)

More Reliable Software Faster And Cheaper

Key Points

Presentation Abstract

Software reliability engineering (SRE) can help those who are stressed out by competitive pressures to produce more reliable software faster and cheaper. It is a standard, proven, widespread best practice with substantial benefits that has been used successfully by organizations such as Alcatel, AT&T, Bellcore, CNES (France), ENEA (Italy), Ericsson Telecom, France Telecom, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, IBM, Lockheed-Martin, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft, MITRE, Motorola, NASA’s Jet Propuls ion Laboratory and Space Shuttle Project, Nortel, Raytheon, Saab Military Aircraft, Tandem Computers, US Air Force, and US Marine Corps.

SRE is based on two powerful ideas:
· Determine how often your customers will use the various functions of your product; then focus your resources in proportion to use and criticality. This approach greatly increases your development efficiency and hence your effective resource pool for adding customer value to your product.
· Further increase customer value by setting quantitative reliability objectives that precisely balance customer needs for reliability, timely delivery, and cost; engineer project strategies to meet them; and track reliability during test to guide release.
You can apply SRE to any system (new or legacy) using software and to members of software comp onent libraries. You can start with the next release.

This tutorial quickly, efficiently teaches the practical basics of how to apply this to your project. It uses a simple, realistic example throughout to illustrate the points. Participants are strongly encouraged to relate the tutorial material to their experience and to ask questions. A book Software Reliability Engineering: More Reliable Software, Faster Development and Testing was written in coordination with the tutorial; although not provided with the tutorial, its availability as a follow-on and supplement to the tutorial is very useful for those wishing to pursue the topic in more detail.

About the Author

John D. Musa is one of the creators of SRE, with more than 30 years varied and extensive experience as a software development practitioner and manager. Principal author of the highly-acclaimed pioneering book Software Reliability and author of the practical Software Reliability Engineering, Musa has published more than 100 papers on SRE. Elected IEEE Fellow in 1986 for many seminal contributions, he was recognized in 1992 as the leading contributor to testing technology. His leadership has been noted by every recent edition of Who’s Who in America and American Men and Women of Science. Musa, widely recognized as a leader in SRE practice, initiated and led the effort that convinced AT&T to make SRE a “Best Current Practice.” Musa has helped a wide variety of companies with a great diversity of software-based products deploy SRE. He is an experienced international speaker and teacher (over 200 major presentations) A founder of the IEEE Technical Committee on SRE, he is closely networked with SRE leaders, providing a broad perspective.