Contents I. Introduction
Conducting reliability testing is a common method to measure whether a system is sufficiently reliable, i.e., capable of performing designated functions within specified period and conditions. This approach finds extensive application in hardware, components, and software-hardware systems, and has seen increased industrial use in the software domain in recent years. While on-site testing is often the most accurate way to evaluate system reliability, it is limited by factors such as access permissions, testing costs, and failure consequences, making it challenging to execute within a laboratory environment. As a result, employing OP to conduct reliability testing and obtain reliability estimates has become one of the most prevalent methods. OP assists in quantifying system reliability, identifying weak points in reliability, reducing system development time, and enhancing production efficiency. As pointed out by Musa[1], using an operational profile to guide testing ensures that if testing is terminated and the software is shipped because of imperative schedule constraints, the most-used operations will have received the most testing and the reliability level will be the maximum that is practically achievable for the given test time.
