Chapter 10 software certification

Software Certification

What is certification?
Why should we really need
it?
Who should carry out this
activity?
Where should we do such
type of certification?


Software Certification

To whom should we target
People

People
Process Process Product
Product

We have seen many certified developers (Microsoft certified,
Cisco certified, JAVA certified), certified processes (like ISO or
CMM) and certified products.
There is no clarity about the procedure of software certification.


Requirement of Certification

Adam Kalawa of Parasoft has given his views on certification like:
“I strongly oppose certification of software developers. I fear that it
will bring more harm than good to the software industry. It may
further hurt software quality by shifting the blame for bad
software. The campaign for certification assumes that unqualified
developers cause software problem and that we can improve
software quality by ensuring that all developers have the golden
stamp of approval. However, improving quality requires
improving the production process and integrating in to it practices
that reduce the opportunity for introducing defects into the
product”


Requirement of Certification

 How often will developers require certification to keep pace with
new technologies?
 How will any certification address the issues like fundamentals
of computer science, analytical & logical reasoning,
programming aptitude & positive attitude?
 Process certification alone cannot guarantee high quality
product.
 Whether we go for certified developers or certified processes?
Can independent certification agency provide a fair playing
field for each software industry??


Types of Certification

People
– Industry specific
Process
– Industry specific
Product
– For the customer directly and helps to select a particular
product


Certification of Persons

The individual obtaining certification receives the following values:
Recognition by peers
Increased confidence in personal capabilities
Recognition by software industry for professional achievement
Improvement in processes
Competences maintained through recertification

Certification is employees initiated improvement process which
improves competence in quality assurances methods & techniques.


Certification of Persons
Professional level of competence in the principles & practices of
software quality assurance in the software industry can be
achieved by acquiring the designation of:
o Certified Software Quality Analyst (CSQA)
o Certified Software Tester (CSTE)
o Certified Software Project Manager (CSPM)
Some company specific certifications are also very popular like
Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certifications in Word, Excel
and PowerPoint.
MOS is far best known computer skills certification for
administrator.

Certification of Processes

The most popular process certification approaches are:
ISO 9000
SEI-CMM
One should always be suspicious about the quality of end
product, however, certification reduces the possibility of poor
quality products.
Any type of process certification helps to produce good quality
and stable software product.


Certification of Products

This is what is required for the customer.
There is no universally accepted product certification
scheme.
Aviation industry has a popular certification “RTCA DO-
178B”.
The targeted certification level is either A, B, C, D, or E.
These levels describe the consequences of a potential failure
of the software : catastrophic, hazardous severe, major,
minor or no effect.



DO-178B Records

Software Development Plan
Software Verification Plan
Software Configuration Management Plan
Software Quality Assurance Plan
Software Requirements Standards
Software Design Document
Software Verification Test Cases & Products



DO-178B Documents

Software Verification Results
Problem Report
Software Configuration Management Records
Software Quality Assurance Records

DO-178B certification process is most demanding at higher levels.



DO-178B level A will:
1. Have largest potential market
2. Require thorough labour intensive preparation of most of
the items on the DO-178B support list.
DO-178B Level E would:
1. Require fewer support item and
2. Less taxing on company resources.



We don’t have product certification in most of the areas. RTOS
(real time operating system) is the real-time operating system
certification & marked as “LinuxOS-178”.
The establishment of independent agencies is a viable option.


Third Party Certification for Component
base Software Engineering

Weyukar has rightly said “For Component based Software
Development (CBO) to revolutionalize software development,
developers must be able to produce software significantly cheaper
and faster than they otherwise could, even as the resulting software
meets the same sort of high reliability standards while being easy to
maintain”.
Bill council has also given his views as “Currently, there is a little
evidences that component based software engineering (CBSE) is
revolutionizing software development, and lots of reasons to believe
otherwise. I believe the primary reason is that the community is not
showing how to develop trusted components”.

Third Party Certification for Component
base Software Engineering
Contractor:
• Gives the standard
• Directs any variations in specification
• Define patterns
• Allowable tolerances
• Fix the date of delivery

Third party certification is a method to ensure software components
conform to well defined standards, based on this certification,
trusted assemblies of components can be constructed

Third party certification is based on UL 1998, 2nd ed., UL standard
for safety for software in programmable component.

Exercises
10.1 What is software certification? Discuss its importance in the changing
scenario of software industry.
10.2 What are different types of certifications? Explain the significance of
each type & which one is most important for the end user.
10.3 What is the role of third party certification in component based software
engineering? Why are we not able to stabilize the component based software
engineering practices.
10.4 Name few person specific certification schemes. Which one is most
popular & why?
10.5 Why customer is only interested in product certification? Discuss any
product certification techniques with their generic applicability.


Chapter 10 software certification

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