A genetic local search algorithm for optimal testing resource allocation in module software systems

Abstract

As modern software systems have been expanded continuously, the problem of how to optimally allocate the limited testing resource during the software testing phase attracted lots of attention. The Optimal Testing Resource Allocation Problems (OTRAPs) involve seeking for an optimal allocation of limited testing resource. There are two major objectives in the OTRAPs: reliability and cost. Since the designers pay more and more attention to reducing the cost, in this paper, we studied OTRAPs with the latter objective. In previous work, approaches based on genetic algorithms have been claimed to be strong alternatives in solving the problem. Hence, in this paper we proposed a new algorithm based on genetic algorithm and local search strategy (GLSA) to solve the OTRAPs. Experimental results show that the algorithm proposed can obtain better performance than some existing approaches for solving the software testing resource problem.