Analysis of faults in an N-version software experiment

Author

Brilliant, Susan S. ; Knight, John C. ; Leveson, Nancy G.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Virginia Univ., Charlottesville, VA, USA

Volume

16

Issue

2

fYear

1990

fDate

2/1/1990 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

238

Lastpage

247

Abstract

The authors have conducted a large-scale experiment in N-version programming. A total of 27 versions of a program were prepared independently from the same specification at two universities. The results of executing the versions revealed that the versions were individually extremely reliable but that the number of input cases in which more than one failed was substantially more than would be expected if they were statistically independent. After the versions had been executed, the failures of each version were examined and the associated faults located. It appears that minor differences in the software development environment would not have a major impact in reducing the incidence of faults that cause correlated failures

Keywords

fault tolerant computing; program testing; software engineering; N-version programming; failure analysis; fault location; software development environment; statistical correlation; Aircraft propulsion; Application software; Computer languages; Computer science; Educational institutions; Fault tolerance; Large-scale systems; Production; Programming profession; Software reliability;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0098-5589

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/32.44387

Filename

44387