Software Architecture Metrics: a literature review

Abstract

In Software Engineering, early detection of architectural issues is key. It helps mitigate the risk of poor performance, and lowers the cost of repairing these issues. Metrics give a quick overview of the project which helps designers with the detection of flaws or degradation in their architecture. Even though studies unveiled architectural metrics more than 25 years ago, they have not yet been embraced by the industry nor the open source community. In this study, we aim at conducting a review of existing metrics focused on the software architecture for evaluating quality, early in the design flow and throughout the project's lifetime. We also give guidelines of their usage and study their relevance in different contexts.