COMPARISONS OF OPTIMAL RELEASE POLICIES FOR SOFTWARE SYSTEMS

In a software product management, it is an important problem to determ ine the optimal release timing which minimizes the total expected cost incurred in both testing and operation phases. In this paper, we comp are the performance between two kinds of software release methods, whi ch are referred to as the T-policy and the N-policy. Based on the exis ting software reliability growth models, we formulate the expected cos t functions and derive analytically the optimal policies under these c ontrol methods. Also, we derive a criterion for which control methods should be adopted. Finally, in numerical examples, we calculate the op timal release policies for several cost parameters. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.