Program: More Reliable Software Faster and Cheaper [ISSRE'2000]

Program: More Reliable Software Faster and Cheaper

Are you stressed out by competitive pressures to produce more reliable software faster and cheaper? Software reliability engineering (SRE) can help you, and you can apply it to the next release of ANY system / component that uses software. You can use SRE for new or legacy systems, any application domain, distributed systems, internet-based systems, and any development methodology including object-oriented development. SRE is based on two powerful ideas:

Determine how often your customers will use the various functions of your product; then focus your resources in proportion to use and criticality. This approach greatly increases your development efficiency and hence your effective resource pool for adding customer value to your product.
Further increase customer value by setting quantitative reliability objectives that precisely balance customer needs for reliability, timely delivery, and cost; engineer project strategies to meet them; and track reliability during test to guide release.

SRE is a standard, proven, widespread best practice. Application of SRE and related technologies on AT&T's International Definity project resulted in increases in reliability, customer satisfaction, and sales by a factor of 10, in comparison with a previous release that did not use these technologies. The system test interval and test costs decreased by a factor of two; project development time, by 30%, and maintenance costs, by a factor of 10. Other organizations such as Alcatel, Bellcore, CNES, ENEA, Ericsson Telecom, France Telecom, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, IBM, Lockheed-Martin, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft, MITRE, Motorola, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Space Shuttle Project, Nortel, Raytheon, Saab Military Aircraft, Tandem Computers, US Air Force, and US Marine Corps have used SRE profitably.

Whether you are a software tester, quality assurance or reliability engineer, systems engineer or architect, project manager, or software developer, this tutorial quickly, efficiently teaches you step by step the essentials of how to apply SRE to your project. It is introductory, and requires only some knowledge of the software development process.

The continually updated tutorial material has been perfected through interaction with thousands of participants worldwide. It uses a simple, realistic example throughout to illustrate the points. Participants are strongly encouraged to relate the tutorial material to their experience and to ask questions. You will learn how to:

Determine the reliability / availability your customers need for your product and engineer your process to deliver it
Develop operational profiles to describe how customers will use your product
Determine how many test cases you need to and can develop
Use operational profiles to increase development efficiency, allocate test cases and test time efficiently, and make test represent field use
Process failure data to certify components you acquire, and track reliability growth and guide release of systems you develop

Presenter: John D. Musa

John D. Musa is one of the creators of SRE, with more than 30 years experience as software development practitioner and manager. Principal author of the highly-acclaimed pioneering book Software Reliability and author of Software Reliability Engineering, Musa has published more than 100 papers on SRE. Elected IEEE Fellow in 1986 for many seminal contributions, he was recognized in 1992 as the leading contributor to testing technology. His leadership has been noted by every recent edition of Who's Who in America and American Men and Women of Science. Musa, widely recognized as the leader in SRE practice, initiated and led the effort that convinced AT&T to make SRE a "Best Current Practice." Musa has helped a wide variety of companies with a great diversity of software-based products deploy SRE. He is an experienced international speaker and teacher (over 200 major presentations). A founder of the IEEE Technical Committee on SRE, he is closely networked with SRE leaders, providing a broad perspective.