Many systems composed of both hardware and software components are expected to be failure-free. This article discusses software reliability and presents the reader with an understanding of why it is meaningful to talk in terms of the reliability of software components. Software faults, unlike hardware faults, are not related to the physical properties of the components. They are the products of the design processes and software’s interfaces to other parts of the system. Just how well the software handles software and hardware faults to prevent errors from occurring determines how reliable the software and the system are deemed to be. [S1043-7398(00)00304-2]

1.
Rey, R., 1983, Engineering and Operations in the Bell System, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ.
2.
Hillis
,
M.
,
Minkus
,
G.
,
DeCaluwe
,
C.
,
Meyers
,
M.
, and
Schafer
,
E.
,
1995
, “
An Improved Approach to Product Quality Through Testing
,”
AT&T Technical Journal
,
74
, No.
3
, pp.
40
48
.
3.
Christenson
,
D.
, and
Huang
,
A.
,
1996
, “
Estimating the Fault Content of Software Using the Fix-on-Fix Model
,”
Bell Syst. Tech. J.
,
1
, No.
1
, pp.
130
137
.
4.
Gabriel, R., 1996, Patterns of Software, Oxford University Press, New York.
5.
Lee, P., and Anderson, T., 1981, Fault Tolerance Principles and Practice, 2nd edition, Springer-Verlag, Wien.
6.
Lyu, M., ed., 1995, Software Fault Tolerance, Wiley, Chichester.
7.
Lyu, M., ed., 1996, Handbook of Software Reliability Engineering, IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA.
8.
Musa, J. Iannino, A., and Okumoto, K., 1987, Software Reliability Measurement, Prediction, Application, McGraw-Hill, New York.
9.
Adams, M., Coplien, J., Gamoke, R., Hanmer, R., Keeve, F., and Nicodemus, K., 1996, “Fault-Tolerant Telecommunications System Patterns,” Pattern Languages of Program Design—2, Vlissides, J., Coplien, J., and Kerth, N., eds., Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, pp. 549–562.
10.
Cunningham, W., 1995, “The CHECKS Pattern Language of Information Integrity,” Pattern Languages of Program Design, Coplien J., and Schmidt, D., eds., Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, pp. 145–155.
11.
Subramanian, S., and Tsai, W-T., 1996, “Backup Pattern: Designing Redundancy in Object-Oriented Software,” Pattern Languages of Program Design—2, J. Vlissides, J. Coplien, and N. Kerth, eds., Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, pp. 207–225.
You do not currently have access to this content.