CSE 8317 (Fall, 2006)

Other Books and Important SRE/SSE Papers

Here is a list of other SRE/SSE books, and some important papers or book chapters. The contents of these papers/chapters roughly correspond to the topics that we will be covering in our CSE 8317 class, so they can be used as additional reading material.

Other Books, with my brief comments

  1. J. D. Musa, A. Iannino and K. Okumoto, "Software Reliability: Measurement, Prediction, Application", McGraw-Hill, 1987. ISBN 0-07-044093-X.
    A classic in software reliability engineering. There are two editions, original (1987) and professional (1990). The student should get the original edition for in-depth mathematics used in reliability models.

  2. Debra S. Herrmann, "Software Safety and Reliability: Techniques, Approaches, and Standards of Key Industrial Sectors", IEEE CS Press, 1999. ISBN 0-7695-0299-7.
    I'd emphasize the subtitle "Standards of Key Industrial Sectors", which including (Chapters 3-7) transportation, aerospace, defense, nuclear power, and biomedical industries, as well as some IEC, IEE, and IEEE guidelines/standards.

  3. Shari L. Pfleeger, L. Hatton, C. C. Howell, "Solid Software", Prentice-Hall, 2002. ISBN 0-13-091298-0.
    Covers many techniques for producing "solid" software, with particular emphasis on the ones that are applicable and effective for safety-critical software and systems.

  4. Stephen H. Kan, "Metrics and Models in Software Quality Engineering, 2/e", Addison-Wesley, 2002. ISBN 0-201-72915-6.
    A lot of models and practical information from a former IBMer. Most comprehensive book of its kind.

Papers/Chapters Available Online and Related References

  1. Tian-AIC paper available online.
    Notice: pages 36-40 excluded => relevant contents covered by Tian-TSE02 paper below.
    References most relevant to this class: 24 (SRE survey), 38 (OP), 39 (SRE applications and recent development), and 49 (data treatment) listed at the end of the paper.

  2. Tian-TSE02 paper available online.
    References most relevant to this class: 2, 4, 9, 17 (all about data treatment) listed at the end of the paper.

  3. Tian-TSE04 paper available online.
    References most relevant to this class: 1, 3, 11, 14, and 15 (all about web traffic/quality/reliability measurement) listed at the end of the paper.

Notice: The above 3 online papers are required reading.

Papers/references from the bibliography of Tian/SQE book

(Chen et al., 2001); (Duran and Ntafos, 1984); (Frankl et al., 1998); (Gerhart et al., 1994); (Hamlet and Taylor, 1990); (Hamlet et al., 2001); (Horgan and Mathur, 1995); (Malaiya et al., 2002); (King et al., 2000)

Notice 1: Reference style used: (Author-last-name, year) for single author items, (AuthorA and AuthorB, year) for double author items, or (AuthorA et al., year) for items with three or more authors.

Notice 2: Some more specialized references, and many of the more recent ones, not listed in Tian/SQE book are listed below, organizated by the three areas (analysis, SRE, SSE).

Defect and Quality Analysis Papers

  1. Robyn R. Lutz Ines Carmen Mikulski, "Empirical Analysis of Safety-Critical Anomalies During Operations", IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering, Vol.30, No.3, pp.172-180, March, 2004.

Other SRE/Testing Papers

  1. R. W. Butler and G. B. Finelli, The Infeasibility of Quantifying the Reliability of Life-Critical Real-Time Software, IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering, 19(1):3-12, Jan, 1993.
  2. Bojan Cukic, "The Virtues of Assessing Software Reliability Early", IEEE Software, Vol.22, No.3, pp.50-53, May/June, 2005.
  3. S. Frolund and R. Guerraoui, e-Transactions: End-to-End Reliability for Three-Tier Architectures, IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering, 28(4):378-395, April 2002.
  4. C. Huang, M. R. Lyu, and S. Kuo, A unified Scheme of Some Nonhomogenous Poisson Process Models for Software Reliability Estimation, IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering, 29(3):261-269, March 2003.
  5. D.R. Jeske, X. Zhang, and L. Pham, "Adjusting Software Failure Rates That Are Estimated From Test Data", IEEE Trans. on Reliability, Vol.54, No.1, pp.107-114, March, 2005.
  6. B. Littlewood and D. Wright, Some Conservative Stopping Rules for the Operational Testing of Safety-Critical Software, IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering, 23(11):673-683, Nov, 1997.
  7. M. R. Lyu, S. Rangarajan, and A. P. A. van Moorsel, Optimal Allocation of Test Resources for Software Reliability Growth Modeling in Software Development, IEEE Trans. on Reliability, 51(2):183-192, June, 2002.
  8. J. M. Voas and L. Kassab, Using Assertions to Make Untestable Software More Testable, Software Quality Professional, 1(4):31-40, Sep, 1999.
  9. A. P. Wood, Software Reliability from the Customer View, IEEE Computer, 36(8):37-42, Aug., 2003.

Other SSE Papers

  1. N. E. Fenton and M. Neil, "A Strategy for Improving Safety Related Software Engineering Standards". IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering, 24(11):1002-1013, Nov., 1998.
  2. S. Gerhart, D. Craigen and T. Ralston. Regulatory case studies. IEEE Software, 11(1):30--39, Jan. 1994.
  3. J. Knight and B. Littlewood. Critical task of writing dependable software. IEEE Software, 11(1):16--20, Jan. 1994.
  4. N. G. Leveson. Software safety in embedded computer systems. Communications of the ACM, 36(2):34--46, Feb. 1991.
  5. N. G. Leveson. High-pressure steam engines and computer software. IEEE Computer, pages 65--73, Oct. 1994.
  6. N. G. Leveson, A systems-theoretic approach to safety in software-intensive systems, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, Vol.1, No.1, pp.66-86, Jan., 2004.
  7. N. G. Leveson and C. Turner. An investigation of the Therac-25 accidents. IEEE Computer, pages 19--41, July 1993.
  8. D. L. Parnas, A. J. Schouwen, and S. P. Kwan. Evaluation of safety-critical software. Communications of the ACM, 33(6):636--648, June 1990.
Notice that the papers #2-#3 above are from the same issue: IEEE Software, 11(1), Jan. 1994 (and a few other papers too!). The next three are by Leveson, the author of our textbook on SSE, with #4 a particularly good survey paper on SSE.

There are also several interesting articles in:

Recent Surveys in a Book

Anthony Finkelstein, editor, "The Future of Software Engineering", ACM Press, 2000.
Survey papers relevant to this class include:

  1. Robyn Lutz: "Software Engineering for Safety: A Roadmap".
  2. Bev Littlewood and Lorenzo Strigini: "Software Reliability and Dependability: A Roadmap".

Prepared by Jeff Tian (tian@engr.smu.edu).
Posted: Aug. 18, 2006. Last update: Aug. 23, 2006.

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