Determining the cost of a stop-test decision (software reliability)

An approach to determining the consequences of a stop-test decision that combines software reliability engineering and economic analysis is described. The approach develops a model to quantify the economic consequences associated with terminating testing at a reliability achieved with a specified number of units of test-program execution, collects data on failures and program-execution time during system test, analyzes reliability data by selecting a reliability-growth model and fitting the model to these data at several points during system test, and applies the reliability model´s estimated values to the economic model to determine the optimal system-release time. The benefits-to-cost ratio of the approach is shown to be very favorable.<>