Assuring Software Reliability

The 2005 Department of Defense Guide for Achieving Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM) recommended an emphasis on engineering analysis with formal design reviews with less reliance on RAM predictions. A number of studies have shown the limitations of current system development practices for meeting these recommendations. This document describes ways that the analysis of the potential impact of software failures (regardless of cause) can be incorporated into development and acquisition practices through the use of software assurance.