Empirical validation of relational database metrics for effort estimation

Measurements of certain attributes during software development process are of core importance. Number of effort estimation metrics has been proposed for software projects, while ignoring relational database applications. In this paper we propose a set of metrics to measure the effort for small scale relational database applications. We present an effort estimation model using statistical techniques that can be used by software development organizations. Our model is flexible as it can measure effort with few database objects as well as with all database objects. We have compared estimated effort with actual effort and found very promising results.