[Context] Coupling is a widely discussed metric by software engineers while developing complex software systems, often referred to as a crucial factor and symptom of a poor or good design. Nevertheless, measuring the logical coupling among microservices and analyzing the interactions between services is non-trivial because it demands runtime information in the form of log files, which are not always accessible. [Objective and Method] In this work, we propose the design of a study aimed at empirically validating the Microservice Logical Coupling (MLC) metric presented in our previous study. In particular, we plan to empirically study Open Source Systems (OSS) built using a microservice architecture. [Results] The result of this work aims at corroborating the effectiveness and validity of the MLC metric. Thus, we will gather empirical evidence and develop a methodology to analyze and support the claims regarding the MLC metric. Furthermore, we establish its usefulness in evaluating and understanding the logical coupling among microservices.
@article{arxiv.2306.02036,
title = {On the Empirical Evidence of Microservice Logical Coupling. A Registered Report},
author = {Dario Amoroso d Aragona and Luca Pascarella and Andrea Janes and Valentina Lenarduzzi and Rafael Penaloza and Davide Taibi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.02036},
year = {2023}
}