A datawarehouse for managing commercial software release

Commercial software release management is primarily concerned with the timely release of the next version of a product. There are a number of objectives in any new release of software, including: implementation of new features, repair of known defects, and maintenance of the overall quality of the software to facilitate future evolution. Deciding on the degree to which each of these objectives will be met is a chronic problem, with real-time consequences for managers responsible for software releases. To make effective decisions, management requires supporting product facts and data. This paper presents an approach based on data warehousing technologies for creating, maintaining, accessing and analyzing product data. The result is a tool that provides management with a uniform, integrated presentation of timely information to support decision making. The infrastructure has been evaluated in a large case study, which makes clear the advantages and shortcomings of the approach.