A New Approach Towards Developing a Prescriptive Analytical Logic Model for Software Application Error Analysis

Abstract

Software application is heavily being used by today’s business operations. However as of the fact, it is no software application in the market can guarantee that it has no software defect escaped during the release. Whenever software application error arises, it can be the cause happened either within the software application layer or any other factor outside the software application layer. The root cause analysis activity becomes more complex in such situation as the analysis activity involves multiple layers. Time consuming is increased to identify the valid error. It leads to the entire analysis duration which can be easily prolonged. This arises the problem statement that, the duration of root cause analysis on software application error carries crucial impact to the service restoration. The objective is to create a logic model to conduct decision making process. This process includes the identification of the root cause in a more accurate manner, and shorten the duration of root cause analysis activity. The design of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) hierarchy will depend on the software application errors and other involved errors found from different layers. These errors become the participants. The participants can be grouped further based on the error categories. Once the hierarchy is constructed, the participants analyze it through a series of pairwise comparisons that derive numerical scales of measurement for the nodes. Then, the priorities are associated with the nodes, and the nodes carry weights of the criteria or alternatives. Based on the priority, the valid error and the preferred resolution can be decided. Many past researches in AHP had been conducted, however there is a knowledge gap of AHP in software application error analysis. Therefore, a Prescriptive Analytical Logic Model (PAL) incorporates with AHP into the proposed algorithm is suggested. This logic model would contribute a new knowledge in the area of log file analysis to shorten the total time spent on root cause analysis activity.