Han Lin, Anh Lai, R. Ullrich, Michal Kuca, Kelly McClelland, Jessica Shaffer-Gant, Sandra Pacheco, Karen Dalton, William Watkins
Today's need for rapid software development has generated a great interest in employing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software products as a way of managing cost, developing time, and effort. With an abundance of COTS software packages to choose from, the problem now is how to systematically evaluate, rank, and select a COTS product that best meets the software project requirements and at the same time can leverage off the current corporate information technology architectural environment. This paper describes a systematic process for decision support in evaluating and ranking COTS software. Performed right after the requirement analysis phase, this process provides the evaluators with more concise, structural, and step-by-step activities for determining the best COTS software product with manageable risk. In addition, the process is presented in phases that are flexible to allow for customization or tailoring to meet various projects' requirements
{"title":"COTS Software Selection Process","authors":"Han Lin, Anh Lai, R. Ullrich, Michal Kuca, Kelly McClelland, Jessica Shaffer-Gant, Sandra Pacheco, Karen Dalton, William Watkins","doi":"10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.11","url":null,"abstract":"Today's need for rapid software development has generated a great interest in employing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software products as a way of managing cost, developing time, and effort. With an abundance of COTS software packages to choose from, the problem now is how to systematically evaluate, rank, and select a COTS product that best meets the software project requirements and at the same time can leverage off the current corporate information technology architectural environment. This paper describes a systematic process for decision support in evaluating and ranking COTS software. Performed right after the requirement analysis phase, this process provides the evaluators with more concise, structural, and step-by-step activities for determining the best COTS software product with manageable risk. In addition, the process is presented in phases that are flexible to allow for customization or tailoring to meet various projects' requirements","PeriodicalId":326403,"journal":{"name":"2007 Sixth International IEEE Conference on Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS)-Based Software Systems (ICCBSS'07)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130306250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Summary form only given. Software technology now penetrates almost every aspect of our lives in complex ways. The reality of 21st century software development is that software itself is but one part of a complex system-of-systems that includes a broad technological infrastructure along with a wide set of human activities. The technological systems and the human activity systems have a symbiotic relationship - each shapes the other in complex ways, such that neither can be understood in isolation. A recent report from the SEI on ultra-large scale (ULS) systems accurately characterized the nature of these systems-of-systems: they have no centralized control; experience normal failures and continual evolution of heterogeneous elements; and their requirements are inherently conflicting, diverse and often unknowable. For design purposes, the boundary between people and software disappears - design is as much about shaping the human activities as it is about constructing the software
{"title":"Scale Changes Everything: Understanding the Requirements for Systems of Systems","authors":"S. Easterbrook","doi":"10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.32","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.32","url":null,"abstract":"Summary form only given. Software technology now penetrates almost every aspect of our lives in complex ways. The reality of 21st century software development is that software itself is but one part of a complex system-of-systems that includes a broad technological infrastructure along with a wide set of human activities. The technological systems and the human activity systems have a symbiotic relationship - each shapes the other in complex ways, such that neither can be understood in isolation. A recent report from the SEI on ultra-large scale (ULS) systems accurately characterized the nature of these systems-of-systems: they have no centralized control; experience normal failures and continual evolution of heterogeneous elements; and their requirements are inherently conflicting, diverse and often unknowable. For design purposes, the boundary between people and software disappears - design is as much about shaping the human activities as it is about constructing the software","PeriodicalId":326403,"journal":{"name":"2007 Sixth International IEEE Conference on Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS)-Based Software Systems (ICCBSS'07)","volume":"112 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124264541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Software composition relies on the interaction of software components, either new or sourced from COTS software vendors. Successful component interaction assumes interoperability, which requires the sharing of common characteristics. Shared characteristics make "like" components integrate more easily but also create isolating mechanisms that prevent or inhibit interaction with components that lack such characteristics. Designing systems from COTS components requires understanding their inherent isolating mechanisms. Most approaches only examine composed systems from the perspective of their integration properties. Ignoring or suppressing isolating mechanisms can lead to a partially composed system. Problems may surface anywhere in the system lifecycle including late binding situations at runtime. We examine how shared properties both facilitate membership in a population of like components; yet also serve to inhibit interaction with non-like components. Isolating mechanisms are shown to act across many system levels in the context of COTS based systems
{"title":"Isolating Mechanisms in COTS-based Systems","authors":"M. T. Gamble, R. Gamble","doi":"10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.20","url":null,"abstract":"Software composition relies on the interaction of software components, either new or sourced from COTS software vendors. Successful component interaction assumes interoperability, which requires the sharing of common characteristics. Shared characteristics make \"like\" components integrate more easily but also create isolating mechanisms that prevent or inhibit interaction with components that lack such characteristics. Designing systems from COTS components requires understanding their inherent isolating mechanisms. Most approaches only examine composed systems from the perspective of their integration properties. Ignoring or suppressing isolating mechanisms can lead to a partially composed system. Problems may surface anywhere in the system lifecycle including late binding situations at runtime. We examine how shared properties both facilitate membership in a population of like components; yet also serve to inhibit interaction with non-like components. Isolating mechanisms are shown to act across many system levels in the context of COTS based systems","PeriodicalId":326403,"journal":{"name":"2007 Sixth International IEEE Conference on Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS)-Based Software Systems (ICCBSS'07)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130454140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Assessment of software COTS components is an essential part of component-based software development. Sub-optimal selection of components may lead to solutions with low quality. The assessment is based on incomplete knowledge about the COTS components themselves and other aspects, which may affect the choice such as the vendor's credentials, etc. We argue in favor of assessment methods in which uncertainty is explicitly represented (`uncertainty explicit' methods) using probability distributions. We have adapted a model (developed elsewhere by Littlewood, B. et al. (2000)) for assessment of a pair of COTS components to take account of the fault (bug) logs that might be available for the COTS components being assessed. We also provide empirical data from a study we have conducted with off-the-shelf database servers, which illustrate the use of the method
软件COTS组件的评估是基于组件的软件开发的重要组成部分。组件的次优选择可能导致解决方案的低质量。评估是基于对COTS组件本身和其他方面的不完全了解,这可能会影响选择,例如供应商的凭据,等等。我们赞成使用概率分布明确表示不确定性的评估方法(“显式不确定性”方法)。我们已经调整了一个模型(由Littlewood, B. et al.(2000)在其他地方开发),用于评估一对COTS组件,以考虑可能对正在评估的COTS组件可用的故障(bug)日志。我们还提供了我们对现成数据库服务器进行的研究的经验数据,这些数据说明了该方法的使用
{"title":"Uncertainty Explicit Assessment of Off-the-Shelf Software: Selection of an Optimal Diverse Pair","authors":"Ilir Gashi, P. Popov","doi":"10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.44","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.44","url":null,"abstract":"Assessment of software COTS components is an essential part of component-based software development. Sub-optimal selection of components may lead to solutions with low quality. The assessment is based on incomplete knowledge about the COTS components themselves and other aspects, which may affect the choice such as the vendor's credentials, etc. We argue in favor of assessment methods in which uncertainty is explicitly represented (`uncertainty explicit' methods) using probability distributions. We have adapted a model (developed elsewhere by Littlewood, B. et al. (2000)) for assessment of a pair of COTS components to take account of the fault (bug) logs that might be available for the COTS components being assessed. We also provide empirical data from a study we have conducted with off-the-shelf database servers, which illustrate the use of the method","PeriodicalId":326403,"journal":{"name":"2007 Sixth International IEEE Conference on Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS)-Based Software Systems (ICCBSS'07)","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124740405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Software product lines (SPL), component based software engineering (CBSE) and commercial off the shelf (COTS) components provide a rich supporting base for creating software architectures. Further, they promise significant improvements in the quality of software configurations that can be composed from pre-built components. Software architectural styles provide a way for achieving a desired coherence for such component-based architectures. This is because the different architectural styles enforce different quality attributes for a system. If the architectural style of an emergent system could be predicted in advance, the system architect could make necessary changes to ensure that the quality attributes dictated by the system requirements were satisfied before the actual system was deployed. In this paper we propose a model for predicting architectural styles, and hence the quality attributes, based on use cases that need to be satisfied by a system configuration. Our technique can be used to determine stylistic conformance and hence indicate the presence or absence of architectural drift
{"title":"Predicting Emergent Properties of Component Based Systems","authors":"Sutirtha Bhattacharya, D. Perry","doi":"10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.25","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.25","url":null,"abstract":"Software product lines (SPL), component based software engineering (CBSE) and commercial off the shelf (COTS) components provide a rich supporting base for creating software architectures. Further, they promise significant improvements in the quality of software configurations that can be composed from pre-built components. Software architectural styles provide a way for achieving a desired coherence for such component-based architectures. This is because the different architectural styles enforce different quality attributes for a system. If the architectural style of an emergent system could be predicted in advance, the system architect could make necessary changes to ensure that the quality attributes dictated by the system requirements were satisfied before the actual system was deployed. In this paper we propose a model for predicting architectural styles, and hence the quality attributes, based on use cases that need to be satisfied by a system configuration. Our technique can be used to determine stylistic conformance and hence indicate the presence or absence of architectural drift","PeriodicalId":326403,"journal":{"name":"2007 Sixth International IEEE Conference on Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS)-Based Software Systems (ICCBSS'07)","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125512459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A software product line is a set of software-intensive systems sharing a common, managed set of features that satisfy the specific needs of a particular market segment or mission and are developed from a common set of core assets in a prescribed way (Clements and Northrop, 2001). Many organizations that deal in wide areas of operation, from consumer electronics, telecommunications, and avionics to information technology, are using software product lines practice, because it deals with effective utilization of software assets (Ahmed and Capretz, 2007). Although software product line is gaining popularity due to economical impacts, there has not been a great deal of research in establishing appropriate models for developing software product line from COTS. By having controlled variability and in satisfying the market demands a product line can be built around a set of COTS by analyzing the products to determine the common and variable features
{"title":"Setting Up COTS-Based Software Product Lines","authors":"F. Ahmed, Luiz Fernando Capretz, M. Capretz","doi":"10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.34","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.34","url":null,"abstract":"A software product line is a set of software-intensive systems sharing a common, managed set of features that satisfy the specific needs of a particular market segment or mission and are developed from a common set of core assets in a prescribed way (Clements and Northrop, 2001). Many organizations that deal in wide areas of operation, from consumer electronics, telecommunications, and avionics to information technology, are using software product lines practice, because it deals with effective utilization of software assets (Ahmed and Capretz, 2007). Although software product line is gaining popularity due to economical impacts, there has not been a great deal of research in establishing appropriate models for developing software product line from COTS. By having controlled variability and in satisfying the market demands a product line can be built around a set of COTS by analyzing the products to determine the common and variable features","PeriodicalId":326403,"journal":{"name":"2007 Sixth International IEEE Conference on Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS)-Based Software Systems (ICCBSS'07)","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125999912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This workshop at ICCBSS07 addresses issues relating to developing interoperable ground systems starting with components that may not originally have been intended to work together. The workshop explores these issues in more depth, shares lessons learned, identifies practical approaches for acquisition and implementation, and highlights research directions for further exploration. The workshop looks at ground system architectures, commercial and legacy components in the domain, current acquisition approaches, and issues relating to interoperability between different ground systems and between ground system components
{"title":"Composing Interoperable Ground Systems","authors":"J. Kerner, Craig A. Lee, G. Chaudhri","doi":"10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.10","url":null,"abstract":"This workshop at ICCBSS07 addresses issues relating to developing interoperable ground systems starting with components that may not originally have been intended to work together. The workshop explores these issues in more depth, shares lessons learned, identifies practical approaches for acquisition and implementation, and highlights research directions for further exploration. The workshop looks at ground system architectures, commercial and legacy components in the domain, current acquisition approaches, and issues relating to interoperability between different ground systems and between ground system components","PeriodicalId":326403,"journal":{"name":"2007 Sixth International IEEE Conference on Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS)-Based Software Systems (ICCBSS'07)","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128605656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Summary form only given. The ability of an organization to reinvent itself, then build and execute a new business process or business model, has improved little over the last thirty years. More and more, the business environment (mergers, acquisitions, new partnerships, spin-offs) is changing faster than enterprise architectures can respond. Architects confront having to embrace rapid change in enterprise information systems across multiple internal legacy applications as well as the external systems of key trading partners. COTS vendors are responding by inverting their delivery model. Enterprise-class systems that provide comprehensive business process functionality with integration at the fringe are now being delivered piecemeal in the form of thousands of services that inherently embody integration. This new architectural style delivers immense flexibility and agility but there are challenges in assembling robust, scalable and reliable enterprise solutions
{"title":"SOA: Some Assembly Required","authors":"Mark Schenecker","doi":"10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.40","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCBSS.2007.40","url":null,"abstract":"Summary form only given. The ability of an organization to reinvent itself, then build and execute a new business process or business model, has improved little over the last thirty years. More and more, the business environment (mergers, acquisitions, new partnerships, spin-offs) is changing faster than enterprise architectures can respond. Architects confront having to embrace rapid change in enterprise information systems across multiple internal legacy applications as well as the external systems of key trading partners. COTS vendors are responding by inverting their delivery model. Enterprise-class systems that provide comprehensive business process functionality with integration at the fringe are now being delivered piecemeal in the form of thousands of services that inherently embody integration. This new architectural style delivers immense flexibility and agility but there are challenges in assembling robust, scalable and reliable enterprise solutions","PeriodicalId":326403,"journal":{"name":"2007 Sixth International IEEE Conference on Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS)-Based Software Systems (ICCBSS'07)","volume":"75 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131227639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}