ODC - Orthogonal Defect Classification

Summary

This paper provides insights into the activation process of software failures, a topic that has very little work to date. The study is based on an operating system product's faults, collected over a period of two-years from general availability for two releases. The paper describes what triggers are, and provides definitions of triggers, as they have been delivered as a part of ODC Release 3.1. for several years. It provides distributions of the triggers from three groups: review/inspection, function test and system test.

Some of the key results shown and discussed are the distribution of the triggers, by each trigger, within each of the groupings. One of the interesting observations, that is valuable to the dependability and software engineering community is that individual triggers peak at different times over the two year period in the field. This is reflective of the different stresses that appear on a product from a customer usage standpoint. The level of resolution provided by the analysis of triggers, enables an understanding of the exact nature of the field forces. These findings are of particular value in experimental design (fault injection), modelling, and a variety of tactical approaches to manage testing or the dependability of products.

This paper breaks new ground in the area of software failure and dependability, which has clearly become the key driving force in the industry. These results should be of interest to the entire community.

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