Abstract
This chapter presents a mathematical model developed to detect and prioritise near misses as they occur on a running system. Although this research does not use near-miss analysis to improve software reliability but rather to improve the accuracy of failure analysis, reliability concepts specific to the IT industry can be used to develop methods to define, detect and prioritise near misses in software systems. These concepts, among others, include the following: the service level agreement (SLA), which defines the contractually agreed level of reliability of a system, and the reliability theory of IT systems, which provides a formula to calculate the failure probability of a system. We propose a definition of the concept “near miss” based on the SLA concept, which is suitable for the software industry. A mathematical formula is provided for the detection of near misses in a formal manner. A prioritisation method for near misses is given.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Devore, J. L., & Berk, K. N. (2012). Modern mathematical statistics with applications (2nd ed., pp. 79–81). New York/London: Springer.
Highleyman, W. H. (2008). Why are active/active systems so reliable? Available from: www.availabilitydigest.com. Accessed 1 Mar 2012.
Holenstein, B., Highleyman, B., & Holenstein, P. J. (2003, December). Breaking the availability barrier: Survivable systems for enterprise computing (Vol. 1, pp. 27–28). Bloomington: Authorhouse.
Holt, C. C. (2004, January–March). Forecasting seasonals and trends by exponentially weighted moving averages. International Journal of Forecasting, 20, 5–10.
Horton, J. (2008, May 15). How BlackBerry outages work. HowStuffWorks.com. Available from: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/blackberry-outage1.htm. Accessed 26 Jul 2012.
IEEE. (1990). IEEE standard computer dictionary: A compilation of IEEE standard computer glossaries. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Jain, M., & Gupta, R. (2011). Redundancy issues in software and hardware systems: An overview. International Journal of Reliability, Quality and Safety Engineering, 18(1), 61–98.
MTL Instruments. (2010). Availability, reliability, SIL: What’s the difference? Available from: http://www.mtl-inst.com/images/uploads/datasheets/App_Notes/ AN9030.pdf. Accessed 28 Feb 2012.
Pullum, L. L. (2001). Software fault tolerance techniques and implementation. Norwood: Artech House.
Sevcik, P. (2008, January). Service level agreements for business-critical applications. NetForecast Report 5091. Available from: http://www.netforecast.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/NFR5091SLAsforBusiness-CriticalApplications.pdf. Accessed 16 Feb 2013.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Eloff, J., Bella, M.B. (2018). A Well-Defined Model for Near-Miss Detection and Prioritisation. In: Software Failure Investigation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61334-5_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61334-5_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-61333-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-61334-5
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)