Maintenance of COTS-intensive software systems

✍ Scribed by Hybertson, Duane W.; Ta, Anh D.; Thomas, William M.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 115 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1040-550X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1096-908x(199707/08)9:4<203::aid-smr155>3.0.co;2-6

✦ Synopsis

The software industry has made extensive use of commercial software tools such as compilers and editors in development environments of computer-based systems for several decades. However, in recent years an emerging trend is the extensive use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software products as a major part of delivered software systems. It is generally recognized that this trend introduces a significant change to the development of computerbased systems. The thrust of this paper is that this trend also introduces a significant change to the software maintenance process. The paper addresses some of the issues involved in the maintenance of COTS-intensive software systems, and the reasons why the COTS factor constitutes a significant change from traditional software maintenance processes. Finally, some lessons learned are offered as suggestions for addressing the issues in the maintenance of COTS-intensive systems.