ecosystems. Software systems are well suited for applying analytics because, on the one hand, mostly formalized and precise data is available and, on the other hand, software systems are extremely difficult to manage ---in a nutshell: "software projects are highly measurable, but often unpredictable."

Core data sources include source code, "check-ins, work items, bug reports and test executions [...] recorded in software repositories such as CVS, Subversion, GIT, and Bugzilla."