International Symposium on Research in Innovation and Sustainability 2014 (ISoRIS ’14) 15-16 October 2014, Malacca, Malaysia Special Issue Sci.Int.(Lahore),26(4),1615-1618,2014 ISSN 1013-5316; CODEN: SINTE 8 1615 THE ANTI-AGEING FACTORS FOR EVERGREEN SOFTWARE – A PRELIMINARY STUDY Zuriani Hayati Abdullah 1 , Jamaiah H. Yahaya 2 , Aziz Deraman 3 1,2 Faculty of Information Science and Technology, University Kebangsaan Malaysia,Bangi, 43650 Selangor, Malaysia 3 School of Informatics & Applied Mathematics, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia zha.ukm@gmail.com, jhy@ukm.edu.my, a.d@umt.edu.my ABSTRACT: Ageing is a phenomenon in which every creature on earth will definitely bound into it. Ageing is inevitable process, but with an understanding of the ageing factors, it in some way helps to delay the aging process. Software is not spared from being old, but unlike human ageing, software ageing can be delayed by identifying factors that influence the ageing. Previous study indicated that software ageing factors can be formulated by relevant, failure, cost, technology and environment. Our previous works in software quality and certification motivated and led us to the development of software anti-ageing model and its related areas such as software ageing factors and rejuvenation index. This paper presents the background studies in software ageing which includes software quality and certification, and focus further on the theoretical framework of software anti-ageing model. KEYWORDS:Software ageing factors, Software rejuvenation, software quality, software anti-ageing, evergreen software 1.0 INTRODUCTION Software ageing has been introduced for certain time ago and not really considered as a new phenomenon in software engineering. It has been studied for the last eighteen years in various aspects of computer science. A significant body of knowledge has been established in the field of Software Aging and Rejuvenation (SAR)[1]. Earlier definition of software ageing refers to accumulation of errors during the software execution, which are ultimately results in crash or hanging failure [2]. Degradation of software performance also leads to the occurrence of software ageing. According to Parnas there are two types of software ageing, which are caused by the results of the changes that have been made and the failure of the software or system to adapt with dynamic environment[3]. In new technologies demand today, software engineers and practitioners need be a technology savvy in order to cope with the changes required rapidly. Failure to adapt with technology changes will results the relevance and important of software getting lesser to its environment which is called a phenomenon of getting old and age. Software must be built with the nature of modifiability and scalability, thus will give flexibility and enable it to stay young and relevant [7,8,17]. The process of delaying the ageing is called software rejuvenation. It can be done by detecting and classifying the ageing factors that may caused the ageing and implement the reverse action to convey the anti-ageing process. In this paper, the research background in software ageing and software quality will be discussed and explored. Previous works done by our research group motivate and lead us to the development of the theoretical framework of software anti-ageing and its related areas such as software ageing factors and rejuvenation. 2.0 RESEARCH BACKGROUND AND RELATED WORK Software ageing refers to the phenomenon of progressive performance degradation of the long running software, which may lead to undesirable hangs or software crashes[4]. Previous studiesindicated that the relevance of the software throughout its life span depended on the quality of the software. Thus, software ageing is closely related to the quality and certification of the software throughout its life cycle in the specific environment [7,17]. 2.1 Software Quality The concern and awareness of the software quality have been increasing in most industrial sectors. Quality by definition is not a specific concept but an abstract measurement. Quality can be viewed as making user to identify about the grade of the product or services, which is related to customer’s satisfaction[5]. On the other hand, software quality can also be measured by three categories of measurements which are: internal measures, external measures and quality in use measures [6]. Internal measures is the process of evaluating on static measures of intermediate product, external measures evaluate on the behavior of the code while the quality in used evaluates the basic set of quality in used characteristics which may affect the software in certain operating environment. From the user’s perspective, software product is more likely as a black box that must effectively support their business processes. Therefore, business need is one of the factors that influence the development of software quality. Previous software quality model such are McCall model (1977), Boehm model (1978), FURPS model (1987), ISO9126 (1991), Dromey model (1996), Systematic Quality model (2003), and PQF model (2007) shown that the software quality characteristics that has been found in most models are: efficiency, maintainability, usability, reliability, functionality and portability [8]. Human aspect is a new element of software quality measurement that has been included in PQF model which are not introduced in earlier models. Measuring software product quality by reckoning the human aspect which relates to the user’s perspective and