The document discusses Grid-QCM, a quality certification model for grid computing. It aims to automate quality assurance processes to reduce costs and effort for organizations. The model defines metrics for static analysis, coding style, testing, and standards compliance. It outputs a final score and certification that objects, not entire processes or organizations. The model is being validated through the ETICS project and aims to standardize quality assurance for grid computing.

1. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
OGF 23 Adriano Rippa
Quality for Grid & Grid for Quality: sharing experiences
and perspectives of Grid and Open Source communities Engineering Ingegneria Informatica S.p.A.
Barcelona, 2nd June 2008

2. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Summary
• The project
• Introduction to QA concepts
• The starting point of the study
• The Grid Quality Certification Model (Grid-QCM)
• The Grid-QCM dissemination timeline
• Some FAQs
• Grid-QCM adoption in a CMMi lev.3 organization
• Conclusions
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 2

3. INFSOM-RI-1234567
The ETICS2 project
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 3

4. INFSOM-RI-1234567
ETICS2
The ETICS second phase
Started in March 2008
Duration: 2 years
Funded by the European Commission
Extended name:
• “eInfrastructure for Testing Integration and Configuration of
Software 2”
Purpose:
• Automate the way a software is built, tested and certified.
It provides
• Fully automatic build, test and certification tools
• A repository for the artefacts
• A Grid based solution  optimal performances and multiple
platform and test options
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 4

5. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Introduction to QA concepts
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 5

6. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Grid-QCM focus
Product VS Process
Quality refers to several concepts like:
• Quality of the Implementation process
• Quality of the requirements management
• Quality of the service
• Quality of the software
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 6

7. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Terminology
Product VS Process
According to ISO 9126 documentation we can define:
• Measure: the number or category assigned to an attribute of an
entity by making a measurement (sometimes used as
synonymous of metric)
• Metric: The defined method to measure an attribute and the
scale
• Measurement: The use of a metric to assign a value (which may
be a number or category) from a scale to an attribute of an entity)
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 7

8. INFSOM-RI-1234567
The starting point
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 8

9. INFSOM-RI-1234567
State of the Art
We have tons of stuff in the SoA!
State of the art provides
• Hundreds of metrics
• Approaches to define user’s own metrics
• Many standards to asses the quality of processes and products
So, what’s the matter?!?
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 9

10. INFSOM-RI-1234567
The matter
Effort and resources
QA means initial investments and
Managing QA means devote resources to it
Many companies (e.g. SMEs) cannot afford the initial effort and
do not recognise the promised increase of value.
• Only ~70 companies in the world are CMMi lev.5 certified
• 50 of them are in India
• source: Gartner
• Just 25% of the companies in the world are CMMi lev.2 or above
• source: Kulik, Weber: “Software Metrics Best Practices – 2001”
and “Software Metrics State of the Art – 2000”
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 10

11. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Current standards issues
Why studying for one more QA certification model
Current quality assurance standards are useful but
• They need lot of time to be applied.
• People need training
• Certification needs inspections to be achieved
• What for the short-lived consortia?
• They provide only theoretical guidelines which need to be
adapted and implemented. What for homogeneity and
comparability of results?
• It’s hard to systematically verify goodness of results: managing
tools needed
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 11

12. INFSOM-RI-1234567
The Grid Quality
Certification Model
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 12

13. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Grid-Quality Certification Model
Our proposal to help developers
Grid-QCM is
• fully automatable in measuring and verifying activities to reduce
investments and management effort
• not subjective, to certify the object not the process nor the
organization
• product oriented, not process oriented
• easily adoptable within short-lived Projects
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 13

14. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Grid-Quality Certification Model
preliminary remarks
Grid-QCM has been developed according to
• The feedback received from expert people and potential users
• ISO standards guidelines:
• Grid-QCM has been described according to ISO 25000, 14598
• Grid-QCM has been structured according to ISO 25041
• Quality attributes has been named according to ISO 9126
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 14

15. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Grid-Quality Certification Model
The ETICS vision
Allows
Grid-QCM Test
Allows
automation
ETICS
Defines
Software
metrics
ETICS grid
Runs
infrastructure
measures
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 15

16. INFSOM-RI-1234567
The structure
Evaluation modules
Grid-QCM is structured in Evaluation Modules (EM).
The set of evaluation techniques are grouped in families. Every
family is an Evaluation Module
5 Evaluation Modules:
• Static analysis
• Coding style
• Structural testing
• Functional testing
• Standards compliance
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 16

17. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Evaluation Modules 1/2
Static analysis
• Quality characteristics:
• Reliability – maturity
• Maintainability – analysability
• Maintainability – changeability
• Maintainability – testability
• Static analysis of classes. Statistics on measures are used as
predictor of quality characteristics.
Coding style
• Quality characteristics:
• Maintainability – analysability
• Static analysis of the source code.
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 17

18. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Evaluation Modules 2/2
Structural testing
• Quality characteristics:
• Functionality – accuracy
• Reliability – maturity
• Structural testing to classes identified more likely to have many
errors.
Functional testing
• Quality characteristics:
• Functionality – accuracy
• Functionality – interoperability
• Reliability – maturity
• Portability – adaptability
• Portability - installability
• Platform compliance and to functional abilities of the software
Standards compliance
• Quality characteristics:
Grid-QCM • Functionality – standards compliance
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 18

19. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Grid-QCM: Final Score
Final score will consist in:
• A table summarizing the results with several possible views
• A list of passed and failed tests
• All the important information as:
• Software product
• Platform
• Quality characteristics
• Standard compliance
• Identification of evaluation report
• Identification of certification body (organization, contact
information)
• Certification data (dates, certification number)
• Electronic signature of certification record
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 19

20. INFSOM-RI-1234567
The Grid-QCM
dissemination timeline
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 20

21. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Grid-QCM worldwide
Since 2007
EGEE ’07 ESA 3rd GRID & e-
1-5 Oct Collaboration Workshop
16-17 Jan 2008
ECHOGRID/EUChinagrid Budapest (Hun)
Frascati (IT)
Conference 24-25 April
Beijing (CHINA) OGF 21
OGF 23
15-19 Oct
2-6 June
Seattle (USA)
Barcelona (SPA)
MAY DEC JAN ‘08
JUNE
FEB ‘07 OCT
EELA 3° Conference Now
3-5 Dec 2007
Catania (IT)
ETICS review
OGF 20/EGEE UF Belief Conference QUALIPSO 15 Feb
7-11 May 25-28 June Conference Geneva (CH)
Manchester (UK) Rio de Janeiro (BRA) 16-17 Jan 2008
Grid-QCM Rome (IT)
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 21

22. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Some FAQs
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 22

23. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Some Questions and Answers
Yes, but…
What’s good about Grid-QCM for my project?
• This model (and the capability of automation) reduces the effort
in performing continuous build and test activities (e.g. coverage
tests) on different SW releases.
What are the costs?
• Using the ETICS tool people can have the model integrated in
the build and test application free of charge
My organisation is certified ISO/CMMI can I use Grid-QCM?
• The model is a standalone quality certification model.
• However it can be easily integrated in yet ISO/CMMI certified
organisations.
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 23

24. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Grid-QCM in a
CMMi lev.3 organisation
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 24

25. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Grid-QCM in a CMMi lev.3 certified company
The Engineering experience
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica S.p.A is certified as follows:
• CMMi lev. 3
• For all production divisions
• ISO 9001
• For all the ICT sector in which the organization is involved
• Since 1994 ( ISO9001:2000 from December 2002)
• NATO AQAP 2110/160
• Since December 1996 (from 1996 to 2005 there were different
rules)
The whole Grid-QCM work is born from internal needs of
• The research area
• The production area
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 25

26. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Engineering QA tools
Keeping the certification
Engineering tools to reach and maintain the CMMi lev. 3
certification:
Spago4Q (www.spago4q.org)
• measures processes, performances and bugs through the
integration with other tools
• Internally developed and available for free
• Examples of calculated metrics:
• Test Coverage
• Anomalies distribution
• Effort used to solve anomalies
• Cost of not founded anomalies
• Metrics about requirements
• Metrics about risk management
• …
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 26

27. INFSOM-RI-1234567
It is not enough…
What ETICS and Grid-QCM can do for ENG
…Some quality aspects are not covered
Grid-QCM + the ETICS suite
• Measures other quality aspects such as:
• Quality of the code
• Compliance with standards
• Compliance with OS
• …
• Can be integrated with the Spago4Q suite
So, Engineering is managing the activities to make Grid-QCM
+ ETICS a tool to keep the CMMi lev.3 certification
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 27

28. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Conclusions
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 28

29. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Conclusions
And further steps
Grid-QCM is a certification model
• Automatable
• Implemented by default in the ETICS tool
• Ready to interact with classical standards
Adopting Grid-QCM requires little human effort
During the ETICS 2 project
• Grid-QCM is going to be validated on-the-field with at first two
(Dec. ‘08) and then four projects (Dec. ’09)
• Grid-QCM will be proposed for the ISO standardisation (2009)
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 29

30. INFSOM-RI-1234567
E-mail addresses
We wish Grid-QCM and ETICS to be as simple and effective as
possible to use.
For this we need your feedback
adriano.rippa@eng.it
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 30

31. INFSOM-RI-1234567
Q&A
Thank you!
http://www.eticsproject.eu
Grid-QCM
Automation in Quality Assurance
Open Grid 31