A framework for cots software evaluation and selection for COTS mismatches handling and non-functional requirements

The decision to purchase Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software needs systematic guidelines so that the appropriate COTS software can be selected in order to provide a viable and effective solution to the organizations. However, the existing COTS software evaluation and selection frameworks focus more on functional aspects and do not give adequate attention to accommodate the mismatch between user requirements and COTS software specification, and also integration with non functional requirements of COTS software. Studies have identified that these two criteria are important in COTS software evaluation and selection. Therefore, this study aims to develop a new framework of COTS software evaluation and selection that focuses on handling COTS software mismatches and integrating the nonfunctional requirements. The study is conducted using mixed-mode methodology which involves survey and interview. The study is conducted in four main phases: a survey and interview of 63 organizations to identify COTS software evaluation criteria, development of COTS software evaluation and selection framework using Evaluation Theory, development of a new decision making technique by integrating Analytical Hierarchy Process and Gap Analysis to handle COTS software mismatches, and validation of the practicality and reliability of the proposed COTS software Evaluation and Selection Framework (COTS-ESF) using experts’ review, case studies and yardstick validation. This study has developed the COTS-ESF which consists of five categories of evaluation criteria: Quality, Domain, Architecture, Operational Environment and Vendor Reputation. It also provides a decision making technique and a complete process for performing the evaluation and selection of COTS software. The result of this study shows that the evaluated aspects of the framework are feasible and demonstrate their potential and practicality to be applied in the real environment. The contribution of this study straddles both the research and practical perspectives of software evaluation by improving decision making and providing a systematic guidelines for handling issue in purchasing viable COTS software

Identifying and Classifying Processes (traditional and soft factors) that Support COTS Component Selection

COTS-Based Systems (CBS) development focuses on building large software systems by integrating previously existing software components. CBS success depends on successful evaluation and selection of Commercial-Off-The- Shelf (COTS) software components to fit customer requirements. Literature shows that successful selection of offthe- shelf systems to fit customer requirements remains problematic. This paper presents the outcome of a study aimed at using a social-technical approach to identify and classify processes (including traditional and soft factors) that support COTS software selection. The identified factors and lessons learnt from case study assisted in elaborating and further development of Social-Technical Approach to COTS Evaluation framework (STACE)

The vendor and user organizations characteristics for COTS software evaluation and selection

Since the Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software become widespread components in the market for building the systems with less time and cost, the COTS evaluation and selection becomes a non-trivial task. There are many models attempted to propose a set of characteristics for evaluating and selecting COTS software.However, these models have concentrated on the functional and quality characteristics of COTS software, leaving other effective characteristics related to vendor (the organization that developed, support, and realized COTS software) and user (the organization that integrated and used COTS software) organizations. Therefore, this paper proposed a set of important characteristics relevant to the vendor and user organizations that play important role to discriminate between COTS alternatives in COTS evaluation and selection process.Most of the related studies have been analyzed and carefully studied in the literature to identify and propose these characteristics together with their attributes and associated metrics

A requirements engineering framework for developing COTS GIS applications : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Information Science in Information Systems at Massey University

There has been an increase in recent years in the number of Geographic Information System (GIS) applications being developed for stakeholders using Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software. There are a lack of guidelines in both industry and the literature on how to acquire user requirements for the development of GIS applications in this COTS software environment. This study investigates process activities in order to build a framework to address these inadequacies. The construction of the framework incorporates requirements engineering and COTS software evaluation and selection process activities from the Information Systems (IS) area. The framework is used to explore three issues related to developing GIS applications and used to determine whether: 1) a life cycle model is used to guide the gathering and analysing of requirements when developing GIS applications, 2) standard IS requirements processes can be used for developing GIS solutions, and 3) standard IS COTS software acquisition processes can be used for developing GIS solutions. Case studies were used to analyse current practices in the GIS industry and to validate the usefulness of these activities in the framework. The results of this investigation suggest that RE practices associated with the COTS paradigm within the IS arena are suitable for developing GIS applications based on user requirements

DesCOTS-EV: a tool for the evaluation of COTS components

In the last years, some methods have been proposed for dealing with COTS component selection. In all of them, a key point is the comparison of the user requirements, which drive the selection process, with the capabilities of the evaluated COTS. Quality models are a means to obtain structured descriptions of COTS domains. Once built, COTS in a domain may be evaluated with respect to the quality entities included therein, quality requirements may be stated with respect to the quality model, and the classical factor-requirement negotiation process may be used for the selection of the most appropriate COTS. Our goal is to have completely implemented in a near future a new version of the system DesCOTS (Grau et al., 2004) that supports all the above processes. This system is constituted by 4 subsystems: QM, that helps in the construction and management of quality models (Carvallo et al., 2004); EV, that helps in the evaluation of COTS components and that is the one presented in this paper; SL, that helps in the definition of requirements in a project and in the selection of COTS components that hold these requirements; and AD, that allows the administration of the whole system.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Unsolved Tricky Issues on COTS Selection and Evaluation

Component Based Software Engineering (CBSE) approach is based on the idea to develop software systems by selecting appropriate components and then to assemble them with a well-defined software architecture. (CBSE) offers developers the twin benefits of reduced software life cycles, shorter development times , saving cost and less effort as compare to build own component. However the success of the component based paradigm depends on the quality of the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components purchased and integrated into the existing software systems. It is need of the time to present a quality model that can be used by software programmer to evaluate the quality of software components before integrating them into legacy systems. The evaluation and selection of the COTS components are the most critical process. These evaluation and selection method cannot be resolved by the IT professionals itself. In this study the author tried to compare the twenty three available systematic methods for best evaluation and selection of COTS components

Quantifying COTS Components Selection using Multi Criteria Decision Analysis Method- PROMETHEE

Component Based Development relies on already existing components to develop the system. It offers various advantages as increase in productivity, reduced development effort and time. The biggest challenge is to select the appropriate component from number of alternatives based on the quality parameters. In this paper COTS component selection is reduced to a multi criteria decision problem by quantifying it with PROMETHEE method. PROMETHEE is an outranking method which better supports the evaluation and selection from various alternatives based on the functional and non-functional requirements. The aim of this paper is to show the application of PROMETHEE in evaluating, analysing and selecting the appropriate COTS component with respect to requirements. The paper also discusses the procedure and benefits of using PROMETHEE method over the other MCDA methods

Uncertainty explicit assessment of off-the-shelf software: A Bayesian approach

Assessment of software COTS components is an essential part of component-based software development. Poorly chosen components may lead to solutions of low quality and that are difficult to maintain. The assessment may be based on incomplete knowledge about the COTS component itself and other aspects (e.g. vendor’s credentials, etc.), which may affect the decision of selecting COTS component(s). We argue in favor of assessment methods in which uncertainty is explicitly represented (‘uncertainty explicit’ methods) using probability distributions. We provide details of a Bayesian model, which can be used to capture the uncertainties in the simultaneous assessment of two attributes, thus, also capturing the dependencies that might exist between them. We also provide empirical data from the use of this method for the assessment of off-the-shelf database servers which illustrate the advantages of ‘uncertainty explicit’ methods over conventional methods of COTS component assessment which assume that at the end of the assessment the values of the attributes become known with certainty

Uncertainty explicit assessment of off-the-shelf software: Selection of an optimal diverse pair

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