JohnMusa, the author of Software Reliability Engineering : More Reliable Software, Faster Development and Testing, is credited with developing the concept.
According to John's Web page introducing SRE (http://johnmusa.com/summary.htm), it "is based on two simple, powerful ideas:"
- Quantitatively characterize expected use and then focus resources on most used and/or most critical functions. This increases development efficiency and hence effective resource pool available to add customer value to product.
- Further increase customer value by setting quantitative reliability objectives that precisely balance customer needs for reliability, timely delivery, and cost; engineer project strategies to meet them; and track reliability in test as a release criterion.
SRE at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_engineering#Software_reliability
SRE at Agilent Technologies, Colorado Springs: http://alum.mit.edu/www/tbc/hacks/issre2k.htm