RELIABILITY AND AVAILABILITY MODELING OF A SOFTWARE APPLICATION

• US 20110061041A1
• Filed: 08/03/2010
• Published: 03/10/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Sanamrad, Mohammad A., Hellebro, Holger
• Application Number:
  US12/849,107
• Publication Number:
  US 20110061041A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/120
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/70 Software maintenance or management

Abstract

Reliability and availability modeling of a software application is provided. A reliability and availability model is generated in the form of a white-box model of a software application. An existing model of the software application'"'"'s structure and behaviour is inspected and/or the software application is inspected. The accuracy of the reliability and availability model is determined and reliability and availability metrics for the software application are calculated. Additional input parameters relating to the software application'"'"'s performance may be determined and the additional input parameters may be added to the reliability and availability model.

Claims

1. A method of reliability and availability modeling of a software application, comprising the steps of:

generating by a computer processor a reliability and availability model in the form of a white-box model of a software application, comprising;

inspecting at least one of an existing model of the software application'"'"'s structure and behaviour and the software application;

determining the accuracy of the reliability and availability model; and

calculating reliability and availability metrics for the software application.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, comprising determining additional input parameters relating to the software application'"'"'s performance and adding the parameters to the reliability and availability model.

3. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein determining additional input parameters relating to the software application'"'"'s performance comprises interacting with a running instance of the software application or prototype.

4. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein determining additional input parameters relating to the software application'"'"'s performance comprises accessing historical data.

5. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein determining additional input parameters relating to the software application'"'"'s performance includes user input of parameters.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising changing parameters of the software application and calculating the resulting impact on the reliability and availability.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising changing the design of the software application, altering the reliability and availability model and calculating the resulting impact on the reliability and availability.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the software application is formed of a plurality of components and calculating the reliability and availability comprises calculating individual components'"'"' reliability and availability.

9. The method as claimed in claim 8, wherein the components are selected from the group consisting of a software component, a hardware component, a firmware component and a microcode component.

10. A method for a reliability and availability modeling of a software application service provided to a customer comprising the steps of:

generating by a computer processor a reliability and availability model in the form of a white-box model of a software application, comprising;

inspecting at least one of an existing model of the software application'"'"'s structure and behaviour and/the software application;

determining the accuracy of the reliability and availability model;

calculating reliability and availability metrics for the software application; and

providing the reliability and availability metrics for the software application to the customer.

11. A computer program product for reliability and availability modeling of a software application, the computer program product comprising:

a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising;

computer readable code configured to generate a reliability and availability model in the form of a white-box model of a software application, comprising;

computer readable code configured to inspect at least one of an existing model of the software application'"'"'s structure and behaviour and the software application;

computer readable code configured to determine the accuracy of the reliability and availability model; and

computer readable code configured to calculate reliability and availability metrics for the software application.

12. A system of reliability and availability modeling of a software application, comprising:

a generating component to generate a reliability and/or availability model in the form of a white-box model of a software application, including obtaining information from;

a model interface to inspect an existing model of the software application'"'"'s structure and behaviour;

an application interface to inspect the software application;

an accuracy determining component to determine the accuracy of the reliability and availability model; and

a calculating component to calculate reliability and availability metrics for the software application.

13. The system as claimed in claim 12, including a determining mechanism to determine input parameters relating to the software application'"'"'s performance and adding the parameters to the reliability and availability model.

14. The system as claimed in claim 13, wherein the determining mechanism comprises interacting with a running instance of the software application or prototype.

15. The system as claimed in claim 13, wherein the determining mechanism includes accessing historical data.

16. The system as claimed in claim 13, wherein the determining mechanism includes user input of parameters.

17. The system as claimed in claim 13, wherein the determining mechanism includes changing parameters of the software application and calculating the resulting impact on the reliability and availability.

18. The system as claimed in claim 12, wherein the design of the software application is changed and the reliability and availability model altered and the resulting impact on the reliability and availability is calculated.

19. The system as claimed in claim 12, wherein the software application is formed of a plurality of components and the calculating component to calculate the reliability and availability includes determining individual components reliability and end-to-end availability.

20. The system as claimed in claim 19, wherein the components are selected from the group consisting of a software component, a hardware component, a firmware component and a microcode component.