DTU Course catalogue 2006

Registration

Using Campusnet.
 

Objectives

This course illustrates the state-of-the-art of software reliability, measurement and prediction with application for safety critical systems. 

Topics

The course will cover the following range of topics: 

   * Introduction to Software Reliability 
   * Software Reliability Improvement 
   * Total Quality Software Management 
   * Measuring Software Reliability 
   * Software Reliability Techniques and Tools 
   * Software Reliability Engineering Practice 

Detailed topics can be found in the schedule. 

Schedule

In the first two weeks Professor Florin POPENTIU VLADICESCU will give lectures on the following topics: 

Introduction to Software Reliability

   * The « Software Crisis » 
   * Actual software disasters 
   * Errors, faults and failures 
   * How faults are introduced into software 
   * What are the special problems of software?
   * Different views of software reliability 
   * Software requirements specification 
   * Causes of unreliability in software 
   * Dependable systems: reliable, safe, secure, maintainable, and available 
   * Software maintenance 

Software Reliability Improvement

   * The phases of a Software Project 
   * Monitoring the development process 
   * The software life cycle models 
   * What is software engineering? 
   * Structured Analysis and Structured Design 
   * Fault tolerance 
   * Independent V&V 
   * Fagan Inspection 
   * Testing 
   * Software cost and schedule 

Total Quality Software Management

  * Software quality modeling 
  * High quality software? 
  * Diverse approaches and sources of information 
  * Fault avoidance, removal and tolerance 
  * Process maturity levels (CMM) 
  * Software quality assurance (SQA) 
  * Monitoring the quality of software 
  * Total quality management (TQA) 

Measuring Software Reliability

  * The statistical approach 
  * Data collection 
  * The trend analysis 
  * Managing the forecasting errors 
  * Principles of measurement 
  * The problem is one of prediction? 
  * How to measure failures, faults and changes? 
  * Software reliability metrics 
  * Goal/Question/Metric (GQM) 
  * Complexity Metrics 

Software Reliability Techniques and Tools

  * Objectives of reliability study 
  * Data Trends 
  * The Complete prediction Systems 
  * Overview of some software reliability models 
  * The recalibration of the models 
  * Analysis of model accuracy 
  * U-plot, Y-plot and PLR techniques 
  * Reliability growth models and trend analysis 
  * Software Costs Models 
  * Supermodels 

Software Reliability Engineering Practice

   * Dependence upon computer in safety -critical systems 
   * Can we build these to the reliability levels needed? 
   * How to use Software reliability Growth Models in practice 
   * How might we gain confidence in ultra-high reliability? 
   * Limits for reliability measurements 
   * Case studies 
   * Frequently Asked Questions
   * General conclusions 
 

In the third week students can again work on laboratory assignments. 
A final session will conclude the course. During this final session 
outstanding questions will be discussed. 
 

The presentation of the practical aspects in laboratory sessions using
R-Vision, SOFTRELY-WEB_v1.1 , CASRE and SREPTsoftware tools will allow students to enhance the
Software Reliability problems. The final session concludes the course with time for
outstanding questions to be discussed. 

Training Course Summary and Conclusion
 

Link to download of course material
 
 

Textbook:

The textbook for the course will be:

Hoam Pham (Ed.),Handbook of Reliability Engineering, 2003 XXXI, 663 pp.,ISBN 1-85233-453-3.

Hoang Pham "Software Reliability", Springer Verlag, 2000, 250 pp. ISBN 981-3083-84-0.

Background literature

Students who will attend the course are advised to prepare themselves by reading the following papers: 

H. Madsen et al. "A fuzzy logic approach to software testing and debugging", ESREL Conference, 18-22 September 2006, Estoril, Portugal. 

John D. Musa, "Software Reliability Engineering: More Reliable Software Faster Development and Testing", McGraw-Hill, New York, 1999, pp. 371-380. 

Chapter 6 "Modeling Growth in Software Reliability" by Bev Littlewood, in P. Rook "Software Reliability Handbook", Elsevier Applied Science, 1990. 

Fenton NE and Pfleeger SL, 'Software Metrics: A Rigorous and Practical Approach', International Thomson Computer Press, 1996 

Fl. Popentiu and D.N. Boros, "Software Reliability Growth Models", Microelectronics and Reliability, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1996, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 485-491. 

B. Burtschy et al., "Improving Software Reliability Forecasting", Microelectronics and Reliability, Pergamon Press, Oxford 1997, Vol. 37, No. 6, pp. 901-907. 

Michael R. Lyu, "Handbook of Software Reliability Engineering", McGraw-Hill, New York, 1996. 

Further Information:

Contact:  Florin POPENTIU VLADICESCU
Technical University of Denmark, IMM, Building 321
Tel:  +45 4525 3352
Fax: +45 4588 2673 
E-mail: popentiu@imm.dtu.dk
http://www.imm.dtu.dk/~popentiu