Abstract: Reliability is an important characteristic in quality architecture. For a component based software system, based on path analysis and testing from operational profile, a system reliability model is built using characteristics of the component development process and the system development process that are mutually unrelated. According to the layers of path information and the particular degree of component information, the model can be used at the appropriate granularity. An actual model is shown by statistical testing data, and methods for improving accuracy of reliability estimation is proposed.

Key words: software reliability, layered model, path analysis, operational profile