Analyzing the reliability of communication between software entities using a 3D visualization of clustered graphs

Modern software systems are typically composed of a large number of components, and more and more functionality is realized through the communication between these components. In this paper, we present an approach that enables assessing the reliability of the components and the communication between them. A protocol for testing the communication is presented and applied to several systems. After the execution of this protocol, an error rate is known for each component and each communication link of the system. This information is transformed into a graph containing the information about the components and their known communication relations. Finally, these graphs are analyzed using a 3D visualization based on a clustered force-directed layout. Major benefits of this approach include a method for assessing the reliability of components that are not directly accessible and a visualization that optimally supports the analysis of graphs in this application domain.