Analyzing Performance of Web-Based Metrics for Evaluating Reliability and Maintainability of Hypermedia Applications

Abstract

This paper has been designed to identify the Web metrics for evaluating the reliability and maintainability of hypermedia applications. In the age of information and communication technology (ICT), Web and the Internet, have brought significant changes in information technology (IT) and their related scenarios. Therefore in this paper an attempt has been made to trace out the Web-based measurements towards the creation of efficient Web centric applications. The dramatic increase in Web site development and their relative usage has led to the need of Web-based metrics. These metrics will accurately assess the efforts in the Web-based applications. Here we promote the simple, but elegant approaches to estimate the efforts needed for designing Web-based applications with the help of user behavior model graph (UBMG), Web page replacement algorithms, and RS Web Application Effort Assessment (RSWAEA) method. Effort assessment of hyperdocuments is crucial for Web-based systems, where outages can result in loss of revenue and dissatisfied customers. Here we advocate a simple, but elegant approach for effort estimation for Web applications from an empirical point of view. The proposed methods and models have been designed after carrying out an empirical study with the students of an advanced university class and Web designers that used various client-server based Web technologies. Our first aim was to compare the relative importance of each Web-based metric and method. Second, we also implemented the quality of the designs obtained based by constructing the User Behavior Model Graphs (UBMGs) to capture the reliability of Web-based applications. Thirdly, we use Web page replacement algorithms for increasing the Web site usability index, maintainability, reliability, and ranking. The results obtained from the above Web-based metrics can help us to analytically identify the effort assessment and failure points in Web-based systems and makes the evaluation of reliability of these systems simple.