Software Quality Assurance in INDIGO-DataCloud Project: a Converging Evolution of Software Engineering Practices to Support European Research e-Infrastructures

From the advent of Grid technology – as the new paradigm of distributed computing – to the current days of Cloud computing models, the continuous need of new tools and services to match the scientific community requirements has been addressed in Europe through dedicated software development projects for e–Infrastructure creation, operation and management. This work presents the most significant software quality breakthroughs obtained in one of such projects, INDIGO–DataCloud , the main challenges and barriers confronted throughout the lifespan of the project, and how they were partially or totally overcome. The knowledge base established throughout the last 15 years of diverse software development initiatives in Europe for sustaining distributed research e-Infrastructures, supported by the advances in the area of software engineering, definitely contributed to improve the quality and reliability of the software delivered, and consequently, the operational stability of the European e–Infrastructures. INDIGO–DataCloud project is a good evidence of such insights, where, unlike the preceding trend found in past projects, the enforcement of Software Quality Assurance practices has been present since the very early stages of the software lifecycle.