Automated performance deviation detection across software versions releases

Performance is an important aspect and critical requirement in multi-process software architecture systems such as Google Chrome. While interacting closely with members of the Google Chrome engineering team, we observed that they face a major challenge in detecting performance deviations between releases, because of their very high release frequency and therefore limited amount of data on each. This paper describes a deep analysis on the data distributions followed by a comparative approach using median based confidence interval for software evaluation. This technique is capable of detecting performance related deviations. It is substantially different from the standard confidence interval, in that it can be used in the presence of outliers and random external influences since the median is less influenced by them. We conducted a bottom-up analysis, using stack traces in a very large pool of releases. The results show that our approach can accurately localize performance deviations at a function-level granularity, using a very small number of trace samples, nearby 5 runs

Are Smell-Based Metrics Actually Useful in Effort-Aware Structural Change-Proneness Prediction? An Empirical Study

Bad code smells (also named as code smells) are symptoms of poor design choices in implementation. Existing studies empirically confirmed that the presence of code smells increases the likelihood of subsequent changes (i.e., change-proness). However, to the best of our knowledge, no prior studies have leveraged smell-based metrics to predict particular change type (i.e., structural changes). Moreover, when evaluating the effectiveness of smell-based metrics in structural change-proneness prediction, none of existing studies take into account of the effort inspecting those change-prone source code. In this paper, we consider five smell-based metrics for effort-aware structural change-proneness prediction and compare these metrics with a baseline of well-known CK metrics in predicting particular categories of change types. Specifically, we first employ univariate logistic regression to analyze the correlation between each smellbased metric and structural change-proneness. Then, we build multivariate prediction models to examine the effectiveness of smell-based metrics in effort-aware structural change-proneness prediction when used alone and used together with the baseline metrics, respectively. Our experiments are conducted on six Java open-source projects with up to 60 versions and results indicate that: (1) all smell-based metrics are significantly related to structural change-proneness, except metric ANS in hive and SCM in camel after removing confounding effect of file size; (2) in most cases, smell-based metrics outperform the baseline metrics in predicting structural change-proneness; and (3) when used together with the baseline metrics, the smell-based metrics are more effective to predict change-prone files with being aware of inspection effort

SIT automation tool: failure use case automation and diagnosis

Study of systems to manage the performance and quality of service of wireless data networks. Work with optimization techniques and project management to solve complex networks issues.The scope of this thesis is the SIT (System Integration Testing) process which is the testing procedure executed in customer test environment before the software goes on production environment. The main objective for this thesis is no other than improving the current process step by step taking into account the automation, efficiency, missing checks and much more. This project is a kind of Industrial process to create a powerful testing tool which can allow the company to deliver quality adaptor products efficiently, do better in less time helping to reduce costs, as Adaptors are the most demanded product of MYCOM OSI portfolio. Take into account that business is not only generated when an Adaptor is delivered for first time but also when Vendors provide with new releases and new functionalities and operators needs to order an upgrade of the Adaptor to be able to monitor the new functionalities deployed on their network.El campo de aplicación en el que está centrado esta tesis es el SIT (System Integration Testing), proceso de testeo ejecutado en un servidor de testeo del cliente antes de desplegar el software el medio de producción. El objetivo principal de esta tesis no es otro que mejorar el proceso actual paso a paso teniendo en cuenta la automatización, eficiencia, la falta de verificaciones, entre otros. Este proyecto es una especie de proceso industrial para crear una aplicación potente de testeo que pueda permitir a la compañía entregar adaptadores de calidad con eficiencia, que hagan más en menos tiempo ayudando así a reducir costes. Los adaptadores son el producto más demandado del porfolio de MYCOM OSI. Hay que tener en cuenta que el negocio no se genera solamente cuando se entrega por primera vez el adaptador al cliente, sino que cuando los proveedores lanzan nuevas versiones con nuevas funcionalidades y los operadores necesitan encargar una mejora del adaptador para poder monitorizar las nuevas funcionalidades desplegadas en su red.El camp d'aplicació en que es basa aquesta tesi és el SIT (System Integration Testing), procés de testeig executat en un servidor de testeig del client abans de desplegar el software al mitjà de producció. L'objectiu principal d'aquesta tesi no és un altre que millorar el procés actual pas a pas tenint en compte l'automatització, l'eficiència, la falta de verificacions, d'entre altres. Aquest projecte és una mena de procés industrial per crear una aplicació potent de testeig que pugui permetre a la companyia lliurar adaptadors de qualitat amb eficiència, que facin més en menys temps ajudant així a reduir costos. Els adaptadors són el producte més demandat del porfolio de MYCOM OSI. Cal tenir en compte que el negoci no només es genera quan es lliura per primera vegada l'adaptador al client, sinó que quan els proveïdors llancen noves versions amb noves funcionalitats i els operadors necessiten encarregar una millora de l'adaptador per poder monitoritzar les noves funcionalitats desplegades a la seva xarxa

The LOFAR Transients Pipeline

Current and future astronomical survey facilities provide a remarkably rich opportunity for transient astronomy, combining unprecedented fields of view with high sensitivity and the ability to access previously unexplored wavelength regimes. This is particularly true of LOFAR, a recently-commissioned, low-frequency radio interferometer, based in the Netherlands and with stations across Europe. The identification of and response to transients is one of LOFAR's key science goals. However, the large data volumes which LOFAR produces, combined with the scientific requirement for rapid response, make automation essential. To support this, we have developed the LOFAR Transients Pipeline, or TraP. The TraP ingests multi-frequency image data from LOFAR or other instruments and searches it for transients and variables, providing automatic alerts of significant detections and populating a lightcurve database for further analysis by astronomers. Here, we discuss the scientific goals of the TraP and how it has been designed to meet them. We describe its implementation, including both the algorithms adopted to maximize performance as well as the development methodology used to ensure it is robust and reliable, particularly in the presence of artefacts typical of radio astronomy imaging. Finally, we report on a series of tests of the pipeline carried out using simulated LOFAR observations with a known population of transients.Comment: 30 pages, 11 figures; Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Computing; Code at https://github.com/transientskp/tk

Report from GI-Dagstuhl Seminar 16394: Software Performance Engineering in the DevOps World

This report documents the program and the outcomes of GI-Dagstuhl Seminar 16394 "Software Performance Engineering in the DevOps World". The seminar addressed the problem of performance-aware DevOps. Both, DevOps and performance engineering have been growing trends over the past one to two years, in no small part due to the rise in importance of identifying performance anomalies in the operations (Ops) of cloud and big data systems and feeding these back to the development (Dev). However, so far, the research community has treated software engineering, performance engineering, and cloud computing mostly as individual research areas. We aimed to identify cross-community collaboration, and to set the path for long-lasting collaborations towards performance-aware DevOps. The main goal of the seminar was to bring together young researchers (PhD students in a later stage of their PhD, as well as PostDocs or Junior Professors) in the areas of (i) software engineering, (ii) performance engineering, and (iii) cloud computing and big data to present their current research projects, to exchange experience and expertise, to discuss research challenges, and to develop ideas for future collaborations

MiSFIT: Mining Software Fault Information and Types

As software becomes more important to society, the number, age, and complexity of systems grow. Software organizations require continuous process improvement to maintain the reliability, security, and quality of these software systems. Software organizations can utilize data from manual fault classification to meet their process improvement needs, but organizations lack the expertise or resources to implement them correctly. This dissertation addresses the need for the automation of software fault classification. Validation results show that automated fault classification, as implemented in the MiSFIT tool, can group faults of similar nature. The resulting classifications result in good agreement for common software faults with no manual effort. To evaluate the method and tool, I develop and apply an extended change taxonomy to classify the source code changes that repaired software faults from an open source project. MiSFIT clusters the faults based on the changes. I manually inspect a random sample of faults from each cluster to validate the results. The automatically classified faults are used to analyze the evolution of a software application over seven major releases. The contributions of this dissertation are an extended change taxonomy for software fault analysis, a method to cluster faults by the syntax of the repair, empirical evidence that fault distribution varies according to the purpose of the module, and the identification of project-specific trends from the analysis of the changes

Model Cards for Model Reporting

Trained machine learning models are increasingly used to perform high-impact tasks in areas such as law enforcement, medicine, education, and employment. In order to clarify the intended use cases of machine learning models and minimize their usage in contexts for which they are not well suited, we recommend that released models be accompanied by documentation detailing their performance characteristics. In this paper, we propose a framework that we call model cards, to encourage such transparent model reporting. Model cards are short documents accompanying trained machine learning models that provide benchmarked evaluation in a variety of conditions, such as across different cultural, demographic, or phenotypic groups (e.g., race, geographic location, sex, Fitzpatrick skin type) and intersectional groups (e.g., age and race, or sex and Fitzpatrick skin type) that are relevant to the intended application domains. Model cards also disclose the context in which models are intended to be used, details of the performance evaluation procedures, and other relevant information. While we focus primarily on human-centered machine learning models in the application fields of computer vision and natural language processing, this framework can be used to document any trained machine learning model. To solidify the concept, we provide cards for two supervised models: One trained to detect smiling faces in images, and one trained to detect toxic comments in text. We propose model cards as a step towards the responsible democratization of machine learning and related AI technology, increasing transparency into how well AI technology works. We hope this work encourages those releasing trained machine learning models to accompany model releases with similar detailed evaluation numbers and other relevant documentation