Cost-reliability-optimal release policy for software reliability models incorporating improvements in testing efficiency

Over the past 30 years, many software reliability growth models (SRGMs) have been proposed for estimation of reliability growth of products during software development processes. One of the most important applications of SRGMs is to determine the software release time. Most software developers and managers always want to know the date on which the desired reliability goal will be met. In this paper, we first review a SRGM with generalized logistic testing-effort function and the proposed generalized logistic testing-effort function can be used to describe the actual consumption of resources during the software development process. Secondly, if software developers want to detect more faults in practice, it is advisable to introduce new test techniques, tools, or consultants, etc. Consequently, here we propose a software cost model that can be used to formulate realistic total software cost projects and discuss the optimal release policy based on cost and reliability considering testing effort and efficiency. Some theorems and several numerical illustrations are also presented. Based on the proposed models and methods, we can specifically address the problem of how to decide when to stop testing and when to release software for use. 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.