When to stop testing and start using software?

Abstract

During the last decade, numerous studies have been undertaken to quantify the failure process of large scale software systems. (see for example, references 1-12.) An important objective of these studies is to predict software performance and use the information for decision making. An important decision of practical concern is the determination of the amount of time that should be spent in testing. This decision of course will depend on the model used for describing the failure phenomenon and the criterion used for determining system readiness. In this paper we present a cost model based on the time dependent fault detection rate model of Goel and Okumoto (4,5) and describe a policy that yields the optimal value of test time T.