Software Failure Investigation

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Jan Eloff, Madeleine Bihina Bella

   Pages 1-6

3. Software Failures: An Overview

   • Jan Eloff, Madeleine Bihina Bella

   Pages 7-24

4. Near-Miss Analysis: An Overview

   • Jan Eloff, Madeleine Bihina Bella

   Pages 25-37

5. A Methodology for Investigating Software Failures Using Digital Forensics and Near-Miss Analysis

   • Jan Eloff, Madeleine Bihina Bella

   Pages 39-56

6. A Well-Defined Model for Near-Miss Detection and Prioritisation

   • Jan Eloff, Madeleine Bihina Bella

   Pages 57-68

7. An Architecture for a Near-Miss Management System (NMS)

   • Jan Eloff, Madeleine Bihina Bella

   Pages 69-74

8. Practical Demonstration of Conducting a Near-Miss Analysis Investigation for Software Failures

   • Jan Eloff, Madeleine Bihina Bella

   Pages 75-100

9. Back Matter

   Pages 101-119

   PDF

This book reviews existing operational software failure analysis techniques and proposes near-miss analysis as a novel, and new technique for investigating and preventing software failures. The authors provide details on how near-miss analysis techniques focus on the time-window before the software failure actually unfolds, so as to detect the high-risk conditions that can lead to a major failure. They detail how by alerting system users of an upcoming software failure, the detection of near misses provides an opportunity to collect at runtime failure-related data that is complete and relevant. They present a near-miss management systems (NMS) for detecting upcoming software failures, which can contribute significantly to the improvement of the accuracy of the software failure analysis. A prototype of the NMS is implemented and is discussed in the book. The authors give a practical hands-on approach towards doing software failure investigations by means of near-miss analysis that is ofuse to industry and academia

• Software failure
• Failure analysis
• Root-cause analysis
• Digital forensics
• Forensic investigation
• Near-miss analysis
• Near-miss management system (NMS)
• Downtime
• Reliability
• quality control, reliability, safety and risk

• University of Pretoria, Hatfield, South Africa

  Jan Eloff, Madeleine Bihina Bella

Professor Jan Eloff graduated in 1985 with a PhD in Computer Science. Up to June 2015 he was appointed as the Research Director for SAP Research in Africa and is currently appointed as Deputy Dean Research & Postgraduate studies: Faculty of Eng., Built Environment and IT (EBIT) and as a full professor in computer science at the University of Pretoria. From 2007 he is an associate-editor of the Computers & Security journal and an editorial member for the international Computer Fraud & Security bulletin published by Elsevier. He is an internationally recognised researcher and has published 113 peer reviewed papers with 3537 citations.


Dr. Madeleine Bihina Bella has over 10 years of industry experience with expertise in IT security and business analysis working in leading roles in a number of multinationals across various industries. She is also a part-time computer science lecturer. In 2015 she graduated with a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Pretoria specializing in the field of digital forensics. Her research focused on near-miss analysis as a novel technique to improve the forensic investigation of software failures. ”. She received a number of awards for her doctoral research including the South African Women in Science Award, the Google Women Techmakers sholarship and the L’Oréal/UNESCO Regional Fellowship for Women in Science in Sub-Saharan Africa. She has published a number of journal and conference papers.

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