SVEN FORTUIN ( ) A Method for Compatible COTS Component Selection BARRY BOEHM UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JESAL BHUTA UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

A Method for Compatible COTS Component Selection Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Part of the UCS spiral COTS Based Application (CBA) Framework (Boehm et al., 2003) CBA is defined as “a system for which 30% of the end-user functionality is provided by COTS components, and at least 10% of the development effort is devoted to COTS considerations” Bad experiences  compatibility

Process-Deliverable Diagram

Example (1/10) Watch vendor Online shop COTS Based Application (CBA)

Example (2/10) 0: Create Objectives, Constraints & Priorities (OC&Ps)  Automatic generation of invoices  Automatic inventory update  Automated order processing  Sending order and shipping confirmation  Online shopping cart

Example (3/10) 1: Identify Candidate Components  Cart 32  MSSQL  Danise Cart  Microsoft IIS  Apache-CGI  X-Hub Enterprise Cart  MySQL  Apache-Tomcat

Example (4/10) 2: Classify Components into Function Groups Function group: Database Applications Shopping Carts Application Servers COTS component: MySQLCart 32Microsoft IIS COTS component: MS-AccessDanise CartApache-CGI COTS component: MSSQLX-Hub Enterprise Cart Apache Tomcat

Example (5/10) 3: Evaluate Components  X-Hub Enterprise  Apache Tomcat  Danise Cart  Microsoft IIS 4: Buy Information  Vendor suportability

Example (6/10) 3: Evaluate Components  X-Hub Enterprise  Apache Tomcat  Danise Cart  Microsoft IIS 4: Buy Information  Vendor suportability

Example (7/10) 5: Filter out alternatives Function group: Database Applications Shopping Carts Application Servers COTS component: MySQLCart 32Microsoft IIS COTS component: MS-AccessDanise CartApache-CGI COTS component: MSSQL--

Example (8/10) 6: Evaluate Combinations  Component Compatibilty Evaluation Framework 7: Create prototypes  Programming  Glueware

Example (9/10) 6: Evaluate Combinations  Component Compatibilty Evaluation Framework 7: Create prototypes  MSSQL  Cart 32  Microsoft IIS

Example (10/10) 8: Preserve combinations  Word document 9: Choose combinations  MSSQL – Cart 32 – Microsoft IIS

Limitations (1/2) Max 3 function groups

Limitations (2/2) Limitation on number of components

Related Literature (1/2) 28% CBA projects in 1997 (Boehm et al., 2003)  60% CBA projects in 2001 (Boehm et al., 2003) Case study (Garlan et al., 1995)  Quadruple in time  Five times the anticipated costs Glueware (Basili and Boehm, 2001)  One line of glueware  Three times the effort per line of developed application code

Related Literature (2/2) Incompatibilty problems (Gacek, 1998; Gacek and Boehm, 1998; Yakimovich, Travassos and Basili, 1999)  Architectual mismatch  Interface conflicts  Functional mismatch  Non-functional mismatch CRE method (Alves and Castro, 2001)  Domain coverage  Time restriction  Costs rating  Vendor guaranties

References Alves, C., & Castro, J. (2001). CRE: A systematic method for COTS components selection. Proceedings of the XV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering (SBES). Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Basili, V. R., & Boehm, B. (2001). COTS-based systems top 10 list. Computer, 34(5), Bhuta, J., & Boehm, B. (2005). A method for compatible cots component selection. COTS-Based Software Systems, 3412, doi: / _ / _23 Boehm, B., Port, D., Yang, Y., & Bhuta, J. (2003). Composable process elements for developing COTS-based applications. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering, Los Angeles, California, USA, Gacek, C. (1998). Detecting architectural mismatches during systems composition. California, Los Angeles: University of Southern California. Garlan, D., Allen, R., & Ockerbloom, J. (1995). Architectural mismatch: Why reuse is so hard. IEEE Software, 12(6), doi: /MS /MS

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