FABASOFT BEST PRACTICES AND TEST METRICS MODEL

Software companies have to face serious problems about how to measure the progress of test activities and quality of software products in order to estimate test completion criteria, and if the shipment milestone will be reached on time. Measurement is a key activity in testing life cycle and requires established, managed and well documented test process, defined software quality attributes, quantitative measures, and using of test management and bug tracking tools. Test metrics are a subset of software metrics (product metrics, process metrics) and enable the measurement and quality improvement of test process and/or software product. The goal of this paper is to briefly present Fabasoft best practices and lessons learned during functional and system testing of big complex software products, and to describe a simple test metrics model applied to the software test process with the purpose to better control software projects, measure and increase software quality

WISE: Automated support for software project management and measurement

One important aspect of software development and IV&V is measurement. Unless a software development effort is measured in some way, it is difficult to judge the effectiveness of current efforts and predict future performances. Collection of metrics and adherence to a process are difficult tasks in a software project. Change activity is a powerful indicator of project status. Automated systems that can handle change requests, issues, and other process documents provide an excellent platform for tracking the status of the project. A World Wide Web based architecture is developed for (a) making metrics collection an implicit part of the software process, (b) providing metric analysis dynamically, (c) supporting automated tools that can complement current practices of in-process improvement, and (d) overcoming geographical barrier. An operational system (WISE) instantiates this architecture allowing for the improvement of software process in a realistic environment. The tool tracks issues in software development process, provides informal communication between the users with different roles, supports to-do lists (TDL), and helps in software process improvement. WISE minimizes the time devoted to metrics collection, analysis, and captures software change data. Automated tools like WISE focus on understanding and managing the software process. The goal is improvement through measurement

Defect prediction with bad smells in code

Background: Defect prediction in software can be highly beneficial for development projects, when prediction is highly effective and defect-prone areas are predicted correctly. One of the key elements to gain effective software defect prediction is proper selection of metrics used for dataset preparation. Objective: The purpose of this research is to verify, whether code smells metrics, collected using Microsoft CodeAnalysis tool, added to basic metric set, can improve defect prediction in industrial software development project. Results: We verified, if dataset extension by the code smells sourced metrics, change the effectiveness of the defect prediction by comparing prediction results for datasets with and without code smells-oriented metrics. In a result, we observed only small improvement of effectiveness of defect prediction when dataset extended with bad smells metrics was used: average accuracy value increased by 0.0091 and stayed within the margin of error. However, when only use of code smells based metrics were used for prediction (without basic set of metrics), such process resulted with surprisingly high accuracy (0.8249) and F-measure (0.8286) results. We also elaborated data anomalies and problems we observed when two different metric sources were used to prepare one, consistent set of data. Conclusion: Extending the dataset by the code smells sourced metric does not significantly improve the prediction effectiveness. Achieved result did not compensate effort needed to collect additional metrics. However, we observed that defect prediction based on the code smells only is still highly effective and can be used especially where other metrics hardly be used.Comment: Chapter 10 in Software Engineering: Improving Practice through Research (B. Hnatkowska and M. \'Smia{\l}ek, eds.), pp. 163-176, 201

Multiversion software reliability through fault-avoidance and fault-tolerance

In this project we have proposed to investigate a number of experimental and theoretical issues associated with the practical use of multi-version software in providing dependable software through fault-avoidance and fault-elimination, as well as run-time tolerance of software faults. In the period reported here we have working on the following: We have continued collection of data on the relationships between software faults and reliability, and the coverage provided by the testing process as measured by different metrics (including data flow metrics). We continued work on software reliability estimation methods based on non-random sampling, and the relationship between software reliability and code coverage provided through testing. We have continued studying back-to-back testing as an efficient mechanism for removal of uncorrelated faults, and common-cause faults of variable span. We have also been studying back-to-back testing as a tool for improvement of the software change process, including regression testing. We continued investigating existing, and worked on formulation of new fault-tolerance models. In particular, we have partly finished evaluation of Consensus Voting in the presence of correlated failures, and are in the process of finishing evaluation of Consensus Recovery Block (CRB) under failure correlation. We find both approaches far superior to commonly employed fixed agreement number voting (usually majority voting). We have also finished a cost analysis of the CRB approach

A WWW Based Software Metrics Environment for Software Process Management and Software Product Quality Improvement

The software process needs to be continuously improved to develop high quality software. However, with increasing specialization in the workforce and decentralization in the workplace, software process planning, monitoring, analysis and dynamic tuning in a heterogeneous distributed environment becomes a challenge. We describe a tool which takes advantage of emerging Internet technology to implement a software metrics environment for software process management and software quality improvement. The tool uses a dimensional analytic model to visualize the software development process. The system offers facilities to monitor the status and quality attributes of projects being developed at multiple sites and on multiple platforms based on Internet, Java, JDBC and a database system

Software Process Dynamics: Modeling, Simulation and Improvement

The aim of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the dynamics of the software process, the ways to represent and formalize it, and how it can be integrated with other techniques to facilitate, among other things, process improvement. In order to achieve this goal, different approaches of software process modeling and simulation will be introduced, analyzing their pros and cons. Then, continuous modeling will be used as the modeling approach to build software process models that work in the qualitative and quantitative fields, assessing the decision-making process and the software process improvement arena. The integration of this approach with current process assessment models (such as CMM), static and algorithmic models (such as traditional models used in the estimation process) and the design of a metrics collection program which is triggered by the actual process of model building will also be described in the chapter.Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología (CICYT) TIN2004-06689-C03-0

Implementing metrics for process improvement

There is increasing interest in the use of metrics to control the software development process, to demonstrate productivity and value, and to identify areas for process improvement. Research work completed to date is based on the implementation of metrics in a 'standard' software development environment, and follows either a top-down or bottom-up approach. With the advent of further European unity, many companies are producing localised products, ie products which are translated and adapted to suit each European country. Metrics systems need to be customised to the processes and environment of each company. This thesis describes a 12-step process for metrics implementation, using an optimum approach which is a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches, with a set of applicable metrics, covering the software development process, which can be adapted for any development environment. For the case study, a software localisation company, the suggested implementation process is followed, and relevant measures are adapted to suit the different environment, with a particular emphasis on quality metrics. This thesis also demonstrates that a metrics system is itself subject to continuous improvement, and rather than being a once-off implementation, it is an evolutionary process, changing as the software development process comes under control

A metrics paradigm for object-oriented analysis and design.

For several years, the software industry has been affected by a problem called the software crisis. Many software developers have worked hard to determine remedies for this crisis. The crisis deals with products being produced over costs, behind schedule, with low quality, and not meeting customer satisfaction. Processes are being used which waste resources and build low quality products. In dealing with the software crisis, software practitioners have used many tools, methodologies, and metrics to help produce better products, save resources, and increase productivity. Metrics are meaningful measures used to determine how well software is being produced, where weaknesses are in products, processes, or resources, and indicate where to make improvements. Today, the most popular methodology is the Object-Oriented (00) methodology. Users of this methodology want to prove that it helps resolve the software crisis. There is a belief that 00 systems are developed earlier, easier to understand and maintain, and contain reusable components. However, without metrics, the effectiveness of the 00 approach cannot be proven. Metrics must be used to show if the process or resources being used is responsible for the success or failure of software development, if management of the process is responsible, if the complexity or size of the product being produced is responsible, or if a lack of communication or misunderstandings of requirements is responsible. There are many, many reasons why metrics are used and can be seen in this Thesis. Many metrics are being used for traditional software development methodologies that deal with processes, products, and resources. However, there is no metric paradigm for the 00 development methodology. But, there is a small set of metrics proposed for 00 programming. We provide a 00 metric paradigm that contains metrics grouped into nine categories. We grouped the metrics into categories to make the selection of a particular· metric easier. These nine metrics fit nicely into the 00 methodology. The metrics can be used to measure processes, products, and resources. We provide a size estimation method that helps determine progress, costs, quality, effort, complexity, and schedule. The metrics can be used to prove the effectiveness of the 00 methodology and indicate areas for further improvement

IT – CAUSE AND RECOVERY TOOL IN THE ECONOMIC CRISIS CONTEXT

The present paper aims to identify some of the weaknesses in the IT area that have contributed to the current financial crisis. At the same time, the crisis impact over the IT&C industry is analysed. Some case studies are introduced: credit risk evaluation software applications with low performance are one of the main causes for the collapse in the loan market, while investments in software applications for virtual campuses have the potential to contribute to the recovery as they reduce costs. Therefore, the IT&C is presented from two opposite perspectives: a factor that contributed to the on-going economic turmoil and an important tool in the recovery process. In the economic recovery plan designed by the European Union, an important place is dedicated to the investments in IT&C networks, in the Research & Development area or in the development of the global commerce as companies can make profit from every opportunity that appears on the market. Under these circumstances, the authors design a set of performance metrics that are meant to quantify the efficiency of software applications. The concluion is that the existence of performant information systems with high quality metrics and user-friendly interfaces undoubtly leads to an improvement in the economic pressure factors that characterize the crisis.economic crisis, IT, virtual campuses, credit risk evaluation applications, metrics