Economic analysis of software release problems with warranty cost and reliability requirement

We discuss optimal software release problems which consider both a present value and a warranty period (in the operational phase) during which the developer has to pay the cost for fixing any faults detected. It is very important with respect to software development management that we solve an optimal software testing time by integrating the total expected testing cost and the reliability requirement. We apply a nonhomogeneous Poisson process model to the formulation of a software cost model and analyze three typical cases of the cost model. Moreover, we derive several optimal release polices. Finally, numerical examples are shown to illustrate the results of the optimal policies.