Simulated software testing process and its optimization considering heterogeneous debuggers and release time

Most traditional software reliability growth models (SRGMs) assume immediate fault correction upon detection and therefore only consider fault detection process (FDP). In order to be more realistic, some researchers have tried to incorporate fault correction process (FCP) and fault introduction process (FIP) into the software reliability models. However, it is still difficult to incorporate into the analytical software reliability models some other factors, such as the different fault detection and correction capabilities of debuggers. In this paper, a simulation approach is proposed to model FDP, FIP, and FCP together considering debuggers with different contributions to fault detection rate, different fault correction rate and different fault introduction rate. Besides, this paper also constructed a cost calculation method to optimize the testing design including debuggers assignment and software release time. Some numerical examples are provided to illustrate the proposed model. The results show that the trends of FDP, FCP and FIP are consistent with the intuition to the practice of software testing, and the optimal testing resources allocation and the optimal release time can be obtained according to the proposed model.