Abstract

Software aging and architecture degradation are important areas in software quality assurance. Existing research in these areas has developed mitigation strategies for software aging, other researchers have analyzed strategies for identifying software aging. Regarding architectural degradation, current studies have designed techniques for reducing degradation. However, there appears to be a paucity of studies on the causes of software aging and architectural degradation. Insight into the causes of software aging and architectural degradation can provide a critical perspective and further strengthen the research endeavors on prevention techniques. Using recursive literature review (RLR) and Bootstrapping techniques, this research identifies and analyzes the causes of software aging and architecture degradation in software systems. We found that besides many other causes, architectural degradation is one of the key reasons that cause software aging and acts as a barrier to the sustainability of software architecture.

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