Measuring software quality: a case study

Author

Drake, Thomas

Author_Institution

Software Eng. Appl. Technol. Center, Nat. Security Agency, USA

Volume

29

Issue

11

fYear

1996

fDate

11/1/1996 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

78

Lastpage

87

Abstract

The National Security Agency´s (NSA) mission is to provide support for the security of the United States. Over the years, the Agency has become extremely dependent on the software that makes up its information technology infrastructure. NSA has come to view software as a critical resource upon which much of the world´s security, prosperity, and economic competitiveness increasingly rests. To ensure cost effective delivery of high quality software, NSA has analyzed effective quality measures applied to a sample code base of 25 million lines. This case study dramatically illustrates the benefits of code level measurement activities

Keywords

government data processing; software development management; software metrics; software quality; National Security Agency; United States security; case study; code level measurement activities; cost effective delivery; critical resource; economic competitiveness; high quality software; information technology infrastructure; quality measures; sample code base; software quality measurement; Computer aided software engineering; Costs; Frequency measurement; Information security; National security; Programming; Software engineering; Software maintenance; Software measurement; Software quality;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Computer

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9162

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/2.544241

Filename

544241