3/5/2020 Software Reliability and the Problem of “Context”- Part I | LinkedIn

Try Premium Free

Search for 1 Month

Software Reliability and the Problem of

“Context”- Part I
Published on March 12, 2019

MirHossein(Jay) Jalali-CFSE,TUVFSEng 12 articles

Lead SIS Engineer,Certified Functional Safety Expert in Process Risk
Following
Industry(AS/IEC61511) and safety HW/SW development(AS/IEC615... See More

Lot has been said about the Software Reliability or Software Safety Assessment but the
doctrine still sounds strange, we still don’t know what we are talking about when we’re
talking about software reliability, fault and assessment specially in safety.

"The very concept of software reliability has become a very controversial one. There are
many who hold the view that it is impossible, and in fact meaningless, to try to quantify
software reliability”. One difficulty would be the definition of software and how safety is
attributed into it.How we can say software module A is safer than software module B and
software component B is less reliable than software component C.

If safety is considered to be freedom from of an unaccpetable risk, then software safety

ensures that the code in the computer system will not execute anything that jeopardise safety
i.e moving the system to a hazardous state or suspend safety related code from running.

Messaging

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/software-reliability-problem-context-part-i-jalali-cfse-tuvfseng/ 1/3
3/5/2020 Software Reliability and the Problem of “Context”- Part I | LinkedIn

Search
Is Reliability is a software attitude ? Try Premium Free
for 1 Month

In safety we usually talk bout SIF, which is predominately a system or a hardware thing.The
way we design a safety function impresses that a SIF is more like combination of hardware
thing rather software.In other hand when an input sensor architecture is 1oo2 we first don’t
imagine that any software within those sensors makes that 1oo2 voting , we think - in a
rudimentary way- that 1oo2 is carried out by hardware compoent. The problem with this
concept is that software and hardware fail in different ways.”Hardware failures occur
generally due to aging or the occurrence of random external “shocks.” Hardware can also
fail as the result of errors in design or manufacture, or due to misuse, but, when this occurs,
it is generally during the so- called “infant-mortality period,” which is characterised by high
failure rates which show up early in use”.The failure rates of any hardware - in that way
been available in FMEDA reports, and failure database such as OREDA.We all know what’s
the B10 or Lambda values of a relay, contact-or, pressure switch etc.Software, on the other
hand, does not wear out it doesn’t burn, stuck at low or high or fails mechanically, software -
if hardware works fine- functions forever and in fact one might argue that the only way a
software falis is due to the design or implementation error.

Software Failure- A context based approach

“Once a person has become familiar with using a particular piece of software, it is unlikely
that he/she would claim that it always works or that it never works,".People tend to make a
psychological judgement all the time about the reliability of the software at least in a
informal way.This means they might think software never fail if there is no error in it or it
might work completely randomly some times so they attribute an unexpected behaviour to
it.

In contrary, there is no right or wrong in any software,”Software does not fail “randomly.”
Instead, it fails as a result of encountering some context (i.e., a particular set of inputs, in
combination with a particular operating environment and application) “. Software does what
is designed , compiled for but it COULD express an erroneous situation when it faces a
specific context. Software is always deterministic but it may produces inappropriate results
when in a different context.

End of part I

Report this

Published by

MirHossein(Jay) Jalali-CFSE,TUVFSEng 12 articles Following

Lead SIS Engineer,Certified Functional Safety Expert in Process Risk
Industry(AS/IEC61511) and safety HW/SW development(AS/IEC61508-
2,3,IEC62061,EN954), Exida advisory board member
Published • 1yr

Few weeks ago a friend of mine here in Linkedin started an article about software reliability which has been my area of
interest in functional safety. It encouraged me to compile my thoughts in this area and place them on Linkeind. Here is
part I Messaging

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/software-reliability-problem-context-part-i-jalali-cfse-tuvfseng/ 2/3
3/5/2020 Software Reliability and the Problem of “Context”- Part I | LinkedIn

Try Premium Free

Search Like Comment Share 9 for 1 Month

Reactions

0 Comments
Most Relevant

Add a comment…

MirHossein(Jay) Jalali-CFSE,TUVFSEng
Lead SIS Engineer,Certified Functional Safety Expert in Process Risk Industry(AS/IEC61511) and safety HW/SW development(AS/IEC61508-2,3,IEC62061,EN954), Exida advisory boa
member

Following

More from MirHossein(Jay) Jalali-CFSE,TUVFSEng

HIPPS : A Process and Architectural HIPPS: A PROCESS AND HIPPS: A PROCESS AND HIPPS: A PROCESS AND
and Overview : part 5 ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW -Part 4 ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW -Part 3 ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW -Part 2
MirHossein(Jay) Jalali-CFSE,TUVFSEn… MirHossein(Jay) Jalali-CFSE,TUVFSEn… MirHossein(Jay) Jalali-CFSE,TUVFSEn… MirHossein(Jay) Jalali-CFSE,TUVFSEn…

See all 12 articles

Messaging

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/software-reliability-problem-context-part-i-jalali-cfse-tuvfseng/ 3/3