Does Hardware Configuration and Processor Load Impact Software Fault Observability?

Abstract

Intermittent failures and nondeterministic behavior complicate and compromise the effectiveness of software testing and debugging. To increase the observability of software faults, we explore the effect hardware configurations and processor load have on intermittent failures and the nondeterministic behavior of software systems. We conducted a case study on Mozilla Firefox with a selected set of reported field failures. We replicated the conditions that caused the reported failures ten times on each of nine hardware configurations by varying processor speed, memory, hard drive capacity, and processor load. Using several observability tools, we found that hardware configurations that had less processor speed and memory observed more failures than others. Our results also show that by manipulating processor load, we can influence the observability of some faults.