Towards a software failure cost impact model for the customer: an analysis of an open source product

  • Authors:

  • Ralf Gitzel;Simone Krug;Manuel Brhel

  • Affiliations:

  • ABB Corporate Research Center, Ladenburg, Germany;University of Mannheim, Germany;University of Mannheim, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Predictive Models in Software Engineering
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

While the financial consequences of software errors on the developer's side have been explored extensively, the cost arising for the end user has been largely neglected. One reason is the difficulty of linking errors in the code with emerging failure behavior of the software. The problem becomes even more difficult when trying to predict failure probabilities based on models or code metrics. In this paper we take a first step towards a cost prediction model by exploring the possibilities of modeling the financial consequences of already identified software failures. Firefox, a well-known open source software, is used as a test subject. Historically identified failures are modeled using fault trees. To identify expenses, usage profiles are employed to depict the interaction with the system. The presented approach demonstrates the possibility to model failure cost for an organization using a specific software by establishing a relationship between user behavior, software failures, and cost. As future work, an extension with software error prediction techniques as well as an empirical validation of the model is aspired.