The Hide and Seek Field Data Game

Since around 80s, researchers and software engineers dealing with dependability of system and software products have recognized the crucial role of field data. Field data represent an attractive way for increasing the efficiency of testing activities and, once the product has been delivered, to improve the quality of subsequent releases. On the other hand, plenty of research studies have been conducted on techniques and methods for field data measurement of operational systems: from data filtering and analysis techniques to dependability measurements and improvements. Field data represent also a good opportunity for understanding source of failures. Examples are provided in Siewiorek et al. (2004), such as the one reporting failure data collected on the public switched telephone network (PSTN) which emphasize how failures in systems are due to the environment and operators. Despite these efforts, there is an increasing gap between software practitioners and researchers involved in the development of accurate and efficient methodologies for field data measurement campaigns. This paper tries to shed some light on this problem, which is a sort of "hide and seek game" of real world field data between industries and researchers. Here, the author tries to emphasize the importance of real collaboration between industries and the research community toward the definition of effective "design for dependability evaluation" methodology