Systematic Operational Profile Development for Software Components

  • Authors:
  • Rakesh Shukla;David Carrington;Paul Strooper

  • Affiliations:
  • The University of Queensland, Australia;The University of Queensland, Australia;The University of Queensland, Australia

  • Venue:
  • APSEC '04 Proceedings of the 11th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

An operational profile is a quantification of the expected use of a system. Determining an operational profile for software is a crucial and difficult part of software reliability assessment in general and it can be even more difficult for software components. This paper presents a systematic method for deriving an operational profile for software components. The method uses both actual usage data and intended usage assumptions to derive a usage structure, usage distribution and characteristics of parameters (including relationships between parameters). A usage structure represents the flow and interaction of operation calls. Statecharts are used to model the usage structures. A usage distribution represents probabilities of the operations. The method is illustrated on two Java classes but can be applied to any software component that is accessed through an Application Program Interface (API).