Early reliability assessment of UML based software models

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Abstract
The ability to validate software systems early in the development lifecycle is becoming crucial. While early validation of functional requirements is supported by well known approaches, the validation of non-functional requirements, such as reliability, is not. Early assessment of non-functional requirements can be facilitated by automated transformation of software models into (mathematical) notations suitable for validation. These type of validation approaches are usually as "transparent" to the developers as possible. Consequently, most software developers find them user friendly and easy to adopt.In this paper we introduce a methodology that starts with the analysis of the UML model of software architecture followed by the bayesian framework for reliability prediction. We utilize three different types of UML diagrams: Use Case, Sequence and Deployment diagrams. They are annotated with reliability related attributes. Unlike traditional reliability growth models, which are applicable late in the lifecycle, our approach bases system reliability prediction on component and connector failure rates. In mature development environments, these may be available as the result of reuse. Throughout the lifecycle, as the developers improve their understanding of failure rates and their operational usage, system reliability prediction becomes more precise. We demonstrate the approach through a case study based on a simple web-based transaction processing system.

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