Software and Firmware
Mark L. Ayers · 2012
The topic of software and firmware reliability modeling within the field of telecommunications systems is a challenging one. The underlying principles affecting software reliability are fundamentally different than those for hardware reliability. Failures in software occur for reasons that are fundamentally different than those observed in hardware components. Most software reliability growth models (SRGMs) present in current literature utilize a continuous improvement model that is not necessarily appropriate for a production telecommunications network. This chapter introduces the software failure rate model that modifies the traditional SRGM approach for use in production telecommunications systems. The software failure rate model can be incorporated into a complete system availability model by performing Monte Carlo simulation. The chapter explains calculation of the reliability and availability metrics. The main complication in this analysis is the time dependence of the software failure rate. Controlled Vocabulary Terms Communication system software; failure analysis; firmware; Monte Carlo methods; telecommunication network reliability