Systems and methods for identifying software performance influencers

1. A computer-implemented method of identifying variables which impact performance of software under development, comprising:

collecting data of a current software build related to performance characteristics of the software under development;

performing a linear regression operation on the collected data according to the function ƒ(I i , . . . I j )=Δx+c, where I i is a start build entry of the current software build, I j is an end build entry of the current software build, Δx is a performance change gradient between the start build entry and the end build entry, and c is a constant;

determining from the linear regression operation at least one of the performance change gradient Δx and the constant c; and

generating a performance change factor from the collected data that corresponds to the performance change gradient.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

comparing performance characteristic data corresponding to the current build of the software under development to the performance change gradient; and

outputting at least one fault component from a set of performance change factors that influences performance of the current build in response to the comparison between the performance characteristic data corresponding to the current build and the plurality of performance change gradients.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein comparing the performance characteristic data to the performance change gradients comprises:

determining a historical performance change gradient between two or more builds between the start build and the end build;

determining a performance change factor from the collected data that corresponds to each historical performance change gradient; and

comparing performance characteristic data corresponding to a performance change gradient between a current build of the software under development and a previous build of the software under development to the historical performance change gradients.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the performance characteristic data of the current build includes data related to a performance improvement or a performance lag of the current build.

5. The method of claim 2 further comprising displaying a history of changes made to the at least one fault component.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the start build entry includes one of positive performance change data and negative performance change data corresponding to a first build of the software under development;

receiving subsequent entries from the collected set of data, each subsequent entry including the one of positive performance change data and negative performance change data corresponding to the subsequent entry, until the end build entry is received that includes the other of the positive performance change data and the negative performance change data; and

performing the linear regression operation on the one of the positive performance change data and the negative performance change data corresponding to the start build entry and the subsequent entries to produce a performance a performance change gradient between the start build and end build entries.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising creating a performance change lookup table from the collected set of data, the performance change lookup table including the start build entry, the subsequent entries, the end build entry, the performance change gradients determined by the linear regression operation, and fault components corresponding to each performance change gradient.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the collected set of data includes at least one of software changes between previous builds of the software under development, performance data pertaining to the previous builds, source code version information, and operating environment data.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the operating environment data includes at least one of hardware configuration information, software component version information, dependent binary change information, and operating system version information.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the collected set of data is provided by a version control system, the version control system including source code version control software.