Lucent Technologies

Code Decay in Legacy Software Systems: Measurement, Models, and Statistical Strategies

Case Study

Challenges

Solutions

Research Project

Technical Report 63: One of the main features of the evolution of large software systems is that change-which is necessary to add new functionality, accommodate new hardware, and repair faults-becomes increasingly difficult over time. This phenomenon, which NISS called code decay, was studied by the team. They proposed a number of measurements (code decay indices) on software and on the organizations that produce it, that serve as symptoms, risk factors, and predictors of decay.

Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI)

Research Project

Large data sets are a given in modern industry, technology and science and central issues concerning them demand statistical attention. While the need is apparent, paths to bringing statistical science to bear on large data sets are not clearly mapped. General approaches will emerge most rapidly if adequate focus is placed on specific industrial and scientific problems, in collaboration with those who hold the data. This research effort comprised two interconnected pilot projects dealing with large data sets, each involving a major industrial partner.

These included: