Report on the VERA Experiment

Abstract

The rising cost of testing is driving industry to revise its processes and techniques in order to be able to verify in an economical way the complex systems demanded by current and future applications. The Marconi Research Centre devised a software testing experiment called VERA with the aim of .nding a cost-e.ective veri.cation process. Four mainstream techniques were selected: code review, Fagan inspection, static analysis and automated test-case generation. An independent team applied these techniques on a typical piece of software developed at Alenia Marconi Systems. Metrics originating from 65 other Marconi projects were also analysed. Of the possible combinations of these four veri.cation techniques, our results suggest that Fagan inspection with static analysis is the most cost-effective process.