Assessment of environmental factors affecting software reliability: A survey study

Abstract

Currently, many systems depend on software, and software reliability as such has become one of the key challenges. Several studies have been carried out that focus on the impact of external environmental factors that impact software reliability. These studies, however, were all carried out in the same geographical context. Given the rapid developments in software engineering, this study aims to identify and reinvestigate the environmental factors that impact software reliability by also considering a different context. The environmental factors that have an impact on software reliability as reported in earlier studies have been analyzed and synthesized. Subsequently, a survey study is conducted to analyze the impact of 32 environmental factors from the perspective of multiple stakeholders. Several statistical analysis methods were applied for the analysis. Data were collected from 24 organizations and 70 software professionals. Most factors shown in top 10 lists of previous studies remain in the top 10 in our study, but their order is different. Testing coverage is now the most significant factor and testing effort is considered as the second most significant factor. The environmental factors defined previously retain their impact. The ordering of the importance of the environmental factors has changed though.