Covariate Software Defect Discovery Models to Explicitly Characterize Changepoints

Large-scale software exhibits periods of increased defect discovery when blocks of less thoroughly tested code are introduced into an existing codebase. For example, the mission systems schedule of software intensive government acquisition programs includes multiple overlapping software blocks associated with various capabilities. Software reliability researchers have proposed changepoint models to characterize periods of increased defect discovery. However, these models attempt to identify the location of these changepoints after testing has been performed, which is counter-intuitive because conscious decisions such as testing new functionality drive software changepoints. Existing changepoint models are therefore difficult to employ in a predictive manner. To overcome this limitation, this paper proposes a covariate software defect discovery model capable of explaining changepoints in terms of common software testing activities and metrics such as software size estimation, code coverage, and defect density. The proposed and past changepoint models are compared with respect to their predictive accuracy and computational efficiency. Our results indicate that the proposed approach is more computationally efficient and enables accurate prediction of the time needed to achieve a desired defect discovery intensity or mean time to failure despite the occurrence of changepoints during software testing.