Cots-based software development processes and open issues form

Cots, mots, gots, and nots are abbreviations that describe prepackaged software or less commonly hardware purchase alternatives. Software engineering metrics for cotsbased systems t he paradigm shift to commercial offtheshelfcomponents appears inevitable, necessitating drastic changes to current software development and business practices. The theme build and conquer chosen for this years conference fully represents what we the organizers want to put across to the software community. A management guide to software maintenance in cots. This process is evaluated to identify essential differences in comparison to traditional software development. Cots based development impacts several issues in software development. Voas, j the challenges of using cots software in componentbased development. In offtheshelf otsbased custom software projects there are common and different processes between software developers and acquirers. Commercial offtheshelf or commercially available offtheshelf cots products are packaged solutions which are then adapted to satisfy the needs of the purchasing organization, rather than the commissioning of custommade, or bespoke, solutions. When we talk about integration or specifically cots integration, we actually mean the amalgamation of one cots software with other software.

This paper examines the cots project management strategy and techniques for. This 2004 report focuses on cots product evaluations conducted for the purpose of. Commercialofftheshelf cots based systems demand new indicators for determining a projects progress and its potential for success. The other software can either be a cots or noncots. Source code open source software software project specific motivation. Incorporating cots software products to form a cotsbased. Risks of commercial offtheshelf cots software bryan. I n the future, cots products will play an increasingly important role in not only software product engineering but also software engineering tool development. This article addresses the software security issue in general and then in the context of developing cotsbased systems. Developing systems by integrating open source software oss is increasingly gaining importance in the software industry. Though it is mostly popularized by the linux operating system, it is not limited to it. Cots project management strategy from a state government. Course objectives the objective in this course is to identify the unique challenges of using cots products in software intensive systems and to cover a range of topics and techniques to enable you to be successful when using cots products in your system or project.

Using ots offtheshelf components in software projects has become. The work described in this paper is an investigation of cotsbased software development within a particular nasa environment, with an emphasis on the processes used. Over the past decade, weve witnessed a consolidation of data, control, and presentation integra. Sledge software engineering institute although commercial offtheshelf cots products are becoming increasingly popular, little information is available on how they affect existing software development processes or what new processes are needed. The processes do not address many of the challenges associated with. Research by the cotsbased system cbs initiative at the software engineering institute sei has shown that organizations building, acquiring, or supporting systems that rely on cots products experience a consistent set, or pattern, of problems. Cots based software development and integration csiac. Free software, also known as opensource, is a new player in the software world. Then it lists and discusses pros, cons and issues in cotsbased development. A management guide to software maintenance in cotsbased systems may 1998. An empirical study on offtheshelf component usage in industrial. Commercial offthe shelf software, commonly known as cots, is the type of computer application that can be purchased at any computer retail store or from a software vendor. Institute sei, we are studying this diversity in the software development process. Cots software came with many notsoobvious tradeoffs a reduction in initial cost and development time over an increase in software componentintegration.

Free and proprietary software in cotsbased software. In response to the particular system circumstances their projects face, developers use various processes to create and maintain their customdeveloped systems. It provides a programmatic, prototypedriven, but carefully. Quality and risk concerns currently limit the application of cotsbased system design to noncritical applications. More and more software applications, tools and libraries are available as free software, for free as well as proprietary platforms. Our objective is to design a metric that can be used to measure the size of projects that install and configure cots standalone software, firmware and hardware components. Pdf investigating and improving a cotsbased software. Valuebased processes for cotsbased applications economic imperatives are changing the nature of software development processes to reflect both the opportunities and challenges of using cots products. This nasaspecific information and resource is available in software processes across nasa span, accessible to nasausers from the span tab in this handbook. Product focused software process improvement pp 5468 cite as.

Next, the issues surrounding software security are. A framework for offtheshelf software component development. In the rapidly changing world of software acquisition, open systems and commercial offtheshelf cots products continue to grow in importance because of their expected functional and economic advantages. Evolutionary process for integrating cotsbased systems epic. In these environments, the project management office pmo becomes a resource for a better tactical project management strategy. The change to a cotsbased system approach is a new adventure in systems development. The case study conducted by kesseler 2008, which analyzed a cotsbased ats system, could not corroborate the expected benefits of cots software. Several approaches have been proposed for effort and size estimation, product selection, and architectural mismatches. Open source software oss and commercial off the shelf cots components are the most fundamental ways of software development. Cotsbased development is proposed, and emerging standards and. Short for commercial offtheshelf, an adjective that describes software or hardware products that are readymade and available for sale to the general public.

Elements from other models described in system dynamics literature and main elements in frameworkbased software development were included. A software should be flexible enough to let you map projects, tasks, issues, to people and customers, in endless ways, but so that all data from different projects and methodologies are collected in the. Realizing that cotsbased development represents a significant shift in the way the fdd does business, the sel decided to update its guidelines on recommended practice and processes 11. Examples at the smaller end of the spectrum are most antivirus programs, games and even computer utilities, such as word processors, database managers, spreadsheet creators and so on. To explore and understand problems and challenges of current system requirementoss component. However, it is nondeniable that for the majority of these issues, opensource easily supercede the proprietayr platform except in the support and operations.

Software development process description document, ei32oi001, revision r, flight and ground software division, marshall space flight center msfc, 2010. Technology assessment in software development projects. Sustainable development is achieved through agile processes where development teams and stakeholders can maintain a constant and continuous. Although cotsbased openstandard hardware such as vme and unixpcsystems has been commonly used, until recently the only way to providesoftware connectivity between applications has been with proprietarysystems. The central part is dedicated to survey methods and techniques that can be useful in cotsbased development. The model is composed of four interrelated subsections. Cots based integration institute for software research. Software engineering metrics for cots based systems. It begins with an outline of the authors methodology for this research, then describes and bounds the problem being addressed. Better understanding of these differences may help to initiate reconciling perspectives between these stakeholders for managing the software processes. New techniques have been proposed, or existing ones have been adapted. A process for cots software product evaluation july 2004 technical report santiago comelladorda, john dean, grace lewis, edwin j.

Taking a cotsbased approach to implementing enterprise gis. We all work in environments in which government funding is stretched, program resources are syphoned, disparate applications are waiting on future funds for cycles to implement backlogged features, and legacy applications are teetering with release patch development. Identify the version of the software being delivered. Carnegie mellon university for the operation of the software engineering institute, a federally. The infrastructure incremental development approach iida is a combination of. Cots project management strategy from a state government pmo. Pdf an empirical study of variations in cotsbased software. Cotsbased software development within a particular nasa environment, with an emphasis on the processes used.

Developing new processes for cotsbased systems lisa brownsword, tricia oberndorf, and carol a. Increasingly such systems consist of many different high performanceprocessing subsystem units that need to communicate in realtime. As pointed out in economics of software engineering in chapter 2, software costmodeling has shown that the criteria of software functionality, cost, and speed of development can be related to other criteria that are more closely coupled to choice of programming language. Understanding differences in process perspectives between.

For managing and coordinating resources and processes to deliver software. A related term, milcots, refers to cots products for use by the u. Pdf a software development process for cotsbased information. Fifteen projects using a cotsbased approach were studied and their actual process was documented. It is one at which you can be successful, but to do so you need to heed these keys to success. Third international conference, iccbss 2004, redondo beach, ca, usa. A management guide to software maintenance in cotsbased. Projects to create cotsbased systems cbss thus run into difficulties in trying to follow customdevelopment. Finally a process to support cotsbased development is proposed, and emerging standards and techniques for component integration are discussed.

Citeseerx document details isaac councill, lee giles, pradeep teregowda. Cots products are designed to be implemented easily into existing systems without the need for customization. Roles and responsibilities of software developer pdf. It considers the issues and risks in using cots software over the life. The cots integrated systems are also known as cotsbasedsystems, abbreviated as cbs. In managing cotsbased systems, it is important to include not only the cots products that become part of the operational system, but also the cots products in the software development environment, and products that document the system requirements, and manage the maintenance of the system. As part of a cooperative effort, the software engineering institute and national research council canada have defined a tailorable commercial offtheshelf cots software product. Patricia oberndorf is a senior member of the technical staff mts for dynamic systemscotsbased systems, software engineering institute.

Encourage the execution of repeatable and consistent processes, facilitate the implementation of project management and agency it best practices, and. A support system to cotsbased software development for. Research on cots software for groundbased ats systems is extremely scarce and tackles very specific applications such as the selection of operative systems pierce et al. In this paper, cots and oss are compared on the basis of many attributes and development life cycle of software.

Cotsbased engineering arrives at a solution through a set of iterative activities that preserve flexibility while simultaneously addressing such issues as business processes, product evaluation and acquisition, system evolution, programmatic and technical factors, and vendor and cus. The work described in this paper is an investigation of the cotsbased software development within a particular nasa environment, with an emphasis on the processes used. A cots software product is a vital component in cbs. These determinants are software size, process, development environment, and personnel. References table nasa software engineering handbook ver. This process is evaluated to identify essential differences in comparison to. The model is focused on the use of the technology, not on its creation. An activity framework for cotsbased systems tricia oberndorf lisa brownsword carol a. As part of that work, we have started to articulate some of the activities and practices that are necessary. When referring to open source software oss components, researchers, coders and managers do not feel comfortable in defining them as cots. For example, microsoft office is a cots product that is a packaged software solution for businesses.

Cotsbased software development acm digital library. Nevertheless, if you have a good operation along with research and development. One of the biggest problems sighted in cotsbased projects is a disconnect between time. This book will help you understand the many issues surrounding acquisition of open, cotsbased systems. Although the literature claims that this approach highly impacts requirements engineering re practices, there is a lack of empirical evidence to demonstrate this statement. The limitations of current decisionmaking techniques in. The work described in this paper is an investigation of the cotsbased software development within a particular nasa environment, with an emphasis on the. The median annual wage of software developers was more than 90500 in 2010, reported the bls.