SOFTWARE SURVEILLANCE - A BUYER QUALITY ASSURANCE PROGRAM

Since divestiture from the AT&T Company in 1984, the responsibility for sustaining high-level software quality and services has become a major challenge for the Bellcore Client Companies (BCC's).1 Together, the BCC's spend over $1 billion on software purchases annually. The increased usage of software to control telecommunications systems has contributed greatly to this level of software procurement. Additionally, since network operation and support are becoming more dependent on software control, poor quality could adversely affect not only telephone company operations, cost, and revenue, but the effectiveness of services provided to the public. Avoiding these ill effects is a major objective of the BCC's. In 1984, Bellcore Software Quality Assurance Engineering (SQAE) was established to assist clients in assuring the quality of software2 they purchase. This paper presents Bellcore SQAE's software quality assurance approach and discusses the objectives and accomplishments of the software surveillance program. The objective of this paper is to outline a program which focuses on developing a cooperative relationship between the buyer and supplier to successfully meet some of the challenges that face the BCC's in the 1990's and beyond. © 1990 IEEE