CODEMINE: Building a Software Development Data Analytics Platform at Microsoft

The scale and speed of today's software development efforts impose unprecedented constraints on the pace and quality of decisions made during planning, implementation, and postrelease maintenance and support for software. Decisions during the planning process include level of staffing and choosing a development model given the scope of a project and timelines. Tracking progress, course correcting, and identifying and mitigating risks are key in the development phase, as are monitoring aspects of and improving overall customer satisfaction in the maintenance and support phase. Availability of relevant data can greatly increase both the speed and likelihood of making a decision that leads to a successful software system. This article outlines the process Microsoft has gone through developing CODEMINE--a software development data analytics platform for collecting and analyzing engineering process data—its constraints, and pivotal organizational and technical choices.