Architecture-Based Software Reliability Estimation: Problem Space, Challenges, and Strategies*

*1This work has been supported by NSF awards 0417274 and 0720612. In modern software-intensive systems, reliability is considered to be one of the most critical non-functional properties. To build software in a cost-efficient man-ner, reliability should be analyzed at architecture de-sign time. In this paper, we consider the problem space of, challenges in, and strategies for architecture-based estimation of a software system’s reliability. Architec-ture-based reliability estimation is challenging – – dur-ing early design phases, architects lack information necessary for precisely determining a system’s reliabil-ity, such as the system’s operational profile and failure and recovery information. Thus, we explore how such information can be obtained from alternative sources. Finally, we present a critical overview of existing ap-proaches to architecture-based reliability estimation, in order to indicate directions for future research. 1