Abstracto

Reliability Estimation of Open Source Software based Computational Systems

Dr. Shelbi Joseph, Akhil P V, Seetha Parameswaran

Software systems are progressively being deployed in many facets of human life. The implication of failure of such systems has assorted impact in its customers. The fundamental aspect that supports a software system is focus on quality. Reliability describes the ability of system to function under specified environment for a specified period of time and is used to objectively measure the quality. Evaluation of reliability of a computing system involves computation of hardware reliability and software reliability. Most of the earlier works were merely focused on software reliability with no consideration for hardware part or vice versa. However, a complete estimation of reliability of a computing system requires that these two elements (hardware and software) be considered together and thus demands a combined approach. The present work focuses on this and presents a model for evaluating reliability of a computing system. The method involves identifying the failure data of hardware components, software components and building a model based on it to predict the reliability. To develop reliability model, focus is given to Open Source Software since there is an increasing trend towards the use of it and only a few studies were done for the modeling and measurement of the reliability of such products.