OPTIMAL ALLOCATION AND CONTROL-PROBLEMS FOR SOFTWARE-TESTING RESOURCES

Considerable development resources are consumed during the software-testing phase, fundamentally consisting of module testing, integration testing, and system testing. It is very important for a manager to decide how to spend testing-resources on software testing for developing a quality and reliable software. We consider two kinds of software-testing management problems: Testing-resource allocation to best use specified testing-resources during module testing, and testing-resource control problem for how to spend the allocated amount of testing-resource expenditures during it. We introduce a software reliability growth model based on a nonhomogeneous Poisson process. The model describes the time-dependent behavior of software errors detected and testingresource expenditures spent during the testing. The optimal allocation and control of testing-resources among software modules can improve reliability and shorten the testing stage. Based on the model we provide numerical examples of these two software testing management problems. © 1990 IEEE