SOFTWARE DESIGN VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION - Software Design for Six-Sigma: A Roadmap for Excellence - page 523

19.7.4 Simulation Testing Strategy

Simulation is a powerful tool for validation testing that plays a useful role in deter-
mining the performance of algorithms, and it is used by all the previously mentioned
techniques. It is deployed more in the real-time systems. Simulation as a V&V tool
acts as a model of the software behavior that is expected on models of computational
and external environments (Adrion, et al., 1982).
Simulation has different representations according to the stage in the development
cycle, so it may consist of the formal requirements specification, in the requirement
stage, design specification, or the actual code in the design stage, or it may be a
separate model of the program behavior. At the deployment stage, the code may be
run on a simulation of the target machine under interpretative control because the
code sometimes is developed on a host machine different from the target machine.

19.7.5 Software Testing Summary Table

Table 19.3 shows the summary and comparison of several software testing strategies.

19.8 SOFTWARE DESIGN STANDARDS

This section contains several standards that are related to the software design, particu-
larly those that are related to verification and validation process. A software standard

TABLE 19.3 A Summary and Comparison of Several Testing Strategies

Testing strategy Way of Use Types Special Feature(s)

Test
data—generation
testing

Exercises the
software input and
provides the
expected correct
output

Black box, white
box, alpha testing,
beta testing,
usability testing,
and recovery
testing

Perform functional
analysis for
software
externally, perform
structural analysis
for software
internally

Traditional manual
testing

Hand analysis of
code,
requirements, and
specifications

Walk-through,
inspection, and
review

Done manually, most
traditional mean
for program
analysis

Proof of correctness
testing

Mathematical logic
to prove the
software
consistency

Formal, and informal Most complete static

analysis

Simulation testing Perform model

behavior to
external
environments

Forms of formal
specification,
design
specification, and
separate model

Can be used in all
testing techniques,
and software
model
performance