Software Reuse in Information Systems Development

Software and Management Information Systems application development have become a key area to the performance of most firms. The reuse of previously written code is a way to increase software development productivity as well as the quality of the software (Basili, et al., 1996; Gaffney and Durek, 1989). If previously tested components are reused in a new software project, they are more likely to be error free than new components. This reduces the overall failure rate of the software project. Case studies, such as (Banker and Kauffman, 1991; Poulin, et al., 1993; Apte, et al., 1990; Lim, 1994; Swanson, et al., 1991) were instrumental in obtaining such insights. Today, an increasing number of organizations are adopting the practice of software reuse (Lim, 1994). A common misconception is that object-orientation alone will lead to reuse. While it can help facilitating a reuse approach, research has shown that object technology does not always lead to reuse (Fichman and Kemerer, 1997). Software reuse requires a substantial up-front investment for the development and maintenance of a software repository with reusable components (Barnes and Bollinger, 1991). A large part of the set-up cost comes from the fact that additional effort is needed to make regular components generic enough for use in future projects (Mili, et al., 1994). In the long-run, this initial investment can be offset by the cost savings through reuse. Using a reusable component in lieu of writing a new component from scratch saves development cost. However, the component has to be located and retrieved from the repository. Often, components cannot be used as is, but also need to be modified to fit the context of the new project. Reuse can only be economically viable, if the savings achieved through reuse will over time offset the start-up cost of implementing the reuse methodology and populating the software repository. While software reuse is not a new research area to computer science (Krueger, 1992), MIS research has only recently begun to investigate this important aspect of software development. This reflects an increased understanding that too little work has been done on nontechnical issues (Zand and Samadzadeh, 1995). Organizational and behavioral aspects, legal constraints, and economic considerations are little explored in the context of software reuse. IS research can also contribute to storage and retrieval problem by developing domain specific solutions. In this overview we summarize the work done in the areas most important to IS research

Evolving Legacy System\u27s Features into Fine-grained Components Using Regression Test-Cases

Because many software systems used for business today are considered legacy systems, the need for software evolution techniques has never been greater. We propose a novel evolution methodology for legacy systems that integrates the concepts of features, regression testing, and Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE). Regression test suites are untapped resources that contain important information about the features of a software system. By exercising each feature with its associated test cases using code profilers and similar tools, code can be located and refactored to create components. The unique combination of Feature Engineering and CBSE makes it possible for a legacy system to be modernized quickly and affordably. We develop a new framework to evolve legacy software that maps the features to software components refactored from their feature implementation. In this dissertation, we make the following contributions: First, a new methodology to evolve legacy code is developed that improves the maintainability of evolved legacy systems. Second, the technique describes a clear understanding between features and functionality, and relationships among features using our feature model. Third, the methodology provides guidelines to construct feature-based reusable components using our fine-grained component model. Fourth, we bridge the complexity gap by identifying feature-based test cases and developing feature-based reusable components. We show how to reuse existing tools to aid the evolution of legacy systems rather than re-writing special purpose tools for program slicing and requirement management. We have validated our approach on the evolution of a real-world legacy system. By applying this methodology, American Financial Systems, Inc. (AFS), has successfully restructured its enterprise legacy system and reduced the costs of future maintenance

Supporting 'design for reuse' with modular design

Engineering design reuse refers to the utilization of any knowledge gained from the design activity to support future design. As such, engineering design reuse approaches are concerned with the support, exploration, and enhancement of design knowledge prior, during, and after a design activity. Modular design is a product structuring principle whereby products are developed with distinct modules for rapid product development, efficient upgrades, and possible reuse (of the physical modules). The benefits of modular design center on a greater capacity for structuring component parts to better manage the relation between market requirements and the designed product. This study explores the capabilities of modular design principles to provide improved support for the engineering design reuse concept. The correlations between modular design and 'reuse' are highlighted, with the aim of identifying its potential to aid the little-supported process of design for reuse. In fulfilment of this objective the authors not only identify the requirements of design for reuse, but also propose how modular design principles can be extended to support design for reuse

Reusability in software engineering

This paper surveys recent work concerning reusability in software engineering. The current directions in software reusability are discussed, and the two major approaches of reusable building blocks and reusable patterns studied. An extensive bibliography, parts of which are annotated, is included

E2E-OAM in convergent sub-wavelength-MPLS environments

Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. J. Fernandez-Palacios, J. Aracil, M. Basham, and M. Georgiades, "E2E-OAM in convergent sub-wavelength-MPLS environments", in Future Network and Mobile Summit, 2012, pp. 1-11This paper presents an End-to-End (E2E) Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) architecture for Telco networks including a Sub-wavelength domain. It addresses two main issues: compatibility between MPLS networks and different Sub-wavelength technologies, and scalability of the OAM flows across the whole network. The case for OPST Sub-wavelength technology in the data plane has been studied extensively, however this is the first study on a methodology to scale the number of OAM flows in an E2E scenario combing both subwavelength and MPLS switching domains. Finally the inter-carrier issue in E2E OAM is also explored

Analysis reuse exploiting taxonomical information and belief assignment in industrial problem solving

To take into account the experience feedback on solving complex problems in business is deemed as a way to improve the quality of products and processes. Only a few academic works, however, are concerned with the representation and the instrumentation of experience feedback systems. We propose, in this paper, a model of experiences and mechanisms to use these experiences. More specifically, we wish to encourage the reuse of already performed expert analysis to propose a priori analysis in the solving of a new problem. The proposal is based on a representation in the context of the experience of using a conceptual marker and an explicit representation of the analysis incorporating expert opinions and the fusion of these opinions. The experience feedback models and inference mechanisms are integrated in a commercial support tool for problem solving methodologies. The results obtained to this point have already led to the definition of the role of ‘‘Rex Manager’’ with principles of sustainable management for continuous improvement of industrial processes in companies

Software development: A paradigm for the future

A new paradigm for software development that treats software development as an experimental activity is presented. It provides built-in mechanisms for learning how to develop software better and reusing previous experience in the forms of knowledge, processes, and products. It uses models and measures to aid in the tasks of characterization, evaluation and motivation. An organization scheme is proposed for separating the project-specific focus from the organization's learning and reuse focuses of software development. The implications of this approach for corporations, research and education are discussed and some research activities currently underway at the University of Maryland that support this approach are presented