NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) 19970007330: V & V Within Reuse-Based Software Engineering

1 Pages·0.06 MB·English

by  NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

V&V WITHIN REUSE-BASED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
Reuse '96 Working Group
Edward A. Addy, Chair
30 July- 1 August 1996
Introduction • Frances Van Scoy, WVU Department of
Statistics and Computer Science
Verification and Validation (V&V) is used
to increase the level of assurance of critical Verification and Validation in Traditional
software, particularly that of safety-critical System Application Engineering
and mission-critical software. V&V is a
systems engineering discipline that evaluates V&V is a set of activities performed in
the software in a systems context, and is parallel with system development and
currently applied during the development of designed to provide assurance that a
a specific application system. In order to software system meets the operational needs
bring the effectiveness of V&V to bear of the user. It ensures that the requirements
within reuse-based software engineering, for the system are correct, complete, and
V&V must be incorporated within the consistent, and that the life-cycle products
domain engineering process. correctly implement the system
requirements.
Participants in the working group developed
an initial framework for performing V&V The term verification refers to the process of
within reuse-based software engineering. determining whether or not the products of a
This framework identified V&V tasks that given phase of the software development
could be performed in domain engineering, cycle fulfill the requirements established
V&V tasks that could be performed in the during the previous phase, while validation
transition from domain engineering to is the process of evaluating software at the
application engineering, and the impact of end of the software development process to
these tasks on application V&V activities. ensure compliance with software
The group also considered the criteria and requirements [IEEE STD 729]. Verification
motivation for performing V&V in domain is intended to ensure that the product is built
engineering. correctly, while validation assures that the
correct product is built.
The participants in the V&V Within Reuse-
Based Software Engineering working group While verification and validation have
were: separate definitions, in practice the activities
• Edward Addy, NASA/WVU Software are merged into the process of V&V. This
Research Laboratory (Chair) process evaluates software in a systems
• Susan Robinett, SRA / Army Reuse context, using a structured approach to
Center analyze and test the software against system
• Michael Sabolish, MountainNet, Inc. / functions and against hardware, user and
Research Intern other software interfaces [Wallace and
• Patrick Theeke, SAIC / ASSET Fujii].