Software Assets Research Articles

Context-Aware Web Services Orchestration for Multimedia Conference Process Management

Service oriented architecture is employed to cooperate with different software assets as long as they are wrapped up into web services. Under the architecture, the interoperation of telecom services and IT services is no longer an obstacle lying between the two domains. Besides, with the Web services orchestration technology, combining telecom services and IT services to rapidly develop and deploy new services can effectively improve software assets reusability. However, without context information, it is still hard to provide personalized services adapting to subscribers’ demands and market changes. In this paper, we bring forward context services to acquire context information and introduce context services into Web services orchestration. Taking multimedia conference business process management scenario as an example, we illustrate that context information acquired from context services can assist to provide personalized services to rapidly adapt subscribers’ demands and market changes.

A model‐based method to design an application common platform for enterprise information systems

AbstractThis paper presents a model‐based method to design a software development platform for enterprise information systems. We call it an application common platform, ACP. ACP wraps existing reusable software assets to hide their details from application developers and provide domain level API (Application Programming Interface), so that reusability of software assets and productivity of applications are improved. In this paper, we present a software architecture which organizes applications, ACP, and software assets and illustrate the development of ACP. In particular, we present transformation rules used to derive ACP design models from both application design models and software assets design models. We have evaluated our proposed method through case studies of the development of enterprise information systems. Our proposed method was found to reduce development costs by 20% compared to the estimated costs. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 176(3): 37–51, 2011; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.21166

Introducing agile customer‐centered development in a legacy software product line

AbstractThe ability to rapidly respond to customer interest and to effectively prioritize development effort has been a long‐standing challenge for mass‐market software intensive products. This problem is exacerbated in the context of software product lines as functionality may easily fall over software asset and organizational boundaries with consequent losses in efficiency and nimbleness. Some companies facing these problems in their product line respond with a new development process. In this paper we discuss the developments within a single case study, Intuit's Quickbooks product line that combined agile software development, design thinking and self‐organizing teams in a successful approach, which provided a significant improvement in terms of responsiveness and accuracy of building customer value. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A Value-Based Framework for Software Evolutionary Testing

The fundamental objective in value-based software engineering is to integrate consistent stakeholder value propositions into the full extent of software engineering principles and practices so as to increase the value for software assets. In such a value-based setting, artifacts in software development such as requirement specifications, use cases, test cases, or defects, are not treated as equally important during the development process. Instead, they will be differentiated according to how much they are contributing, directly or indirectly, to the stakeholder value propositions. The higher the contributions, the more important the artifacts become. In turn, development activities involving more important artifacts should be given higher priorities and greater considerations in the development process. In this paper, a value-based framework is proposed for carrying out software evolutionary testing with a focus on test data generation through genetic algorithms. The proposed framework incorporates general principles in value-based software testing and makes it possible to prioritize testing decisions that are rooted in the stakeholder value propositions. It allows for a cost-effective way to fulfill most valuable testing objectives first and a graceful degradation when planned testing process has to be shortened.

Breaking the Boundaries for Software Component Reuse Technology

ABSTRACT Reusable software components are designed to apply the power and benefit of reusable, interchangeable parts from other industries to the field of software construction .Benefits of component reuse such as sharing common code, and components one place and making easier and quicker. The most substantial benefits derive from a product line approach, where a common set of reusable software assets act as a base for subsequent similar products in a given functional domain. Component is fundamental unit of large scale software construction. Every component has an interface and an Implementation. The interface of a component is anything that is visible externally to the component. Everything else belongs to its implementation. This paper addresses the primary boundaries for software component reuse technology. Keywords Software Reuse, component, boundaries, interface, product. 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Software Reuse Software reuse is the process of creating software systems from existing software rather than building them from scratch [1]. Software reuse is still an emerging discipline. It appears in many different forms from horizontal reuse and vertical reuse to systematic reuse, and from white-box reuse to black-box reuse. Many different products for reuse range from ideas and algorithms to any documents that are created during the software life cycle [2].Source code is most commonly reused in software systems; thus many people misunderstands software reuse as the reuse of source code alone. Recently source code and design reuse have become popular with (object-oriented) class libraries, application frameworks, and design patterns. Software components provide a vehicle for planned and systematic reuse [2].

An information systems design product theory for the class of integrated requirements and release management systems

AbstractHigh‐tech companies conducting product development need to collect and analyze requirements effectively, plan and implement releases, and allocate requirements to appropriate releases. Requirements and release management are complicated because development activities typically are scattered across multiple sites, involve multiple partners in different countries, leverage various development methods and tools, and are realized through various organizational arrangements such as release projects in organizations structured around products and permanent release teams in organizations responsible for the long‐term development and maintenance of strategic software and hardware assets. Flexible, scalable, and secure groupware‐based support for the activities provides substantial payoffs. Yet, the extant literature provides little theoretical guidance for designing and using requirements and release management systems (RRMS) in multi‐site, multi‐partner environments. This article develops the meta‐requirements and a meta‐design of an Information Systems Design Product Theory for the class of RRMS based on a case study in a global company and a literature review. The theory is scalable to meet the needs of global companies but simple enough so that small and medium‐sized companies can also leverage it to implement requirements and release management solutions. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Framework Supporting Software Assets Evaluation on Trustworthiness

This paper proposes a framework supporting software assets evaluation on trustworthiness, analyzes the technologies included in this framework, such as evidence collection, trust management for evidence, trustworthiness evaluation and so on. Furthermore, this paper presents the design decisions and solutions of this framework in software asset library of Peking University. A detailed case study is also given

Managing a corporate open source software asset

Introduction We define corporate open source (COS) as applying the precepts and methodologies prevalent in the open source development community for creating industrial-strength software projects in a corporation for internal use. It may seem that open source style development - using informal processes, voluntary assignment to tasks, and having few financial incentives - may not be a good match for commercial environments. Our ongoing work, however, demonstrates that under the right circumstances, corporations can benefit from open source development techniques. We present two approaches to managing COS projects, and expand in detail on one of them. Our results indicate that open source approaches require significant adaptation to succeed in commercial settings. In particular, they require substantial support from business divisions within a corporation to successfully leverage the shared asset. Our ongoing research has attempted to determine whether corporations can effectively leverage the open source development model to create and manage software projects inside the corporate domain. We have observed how the precepts and methodologies of the open source development had to be adapted in order to create commercial grade software. In particular changes are required in order to accommodate a market-driven schedule and feature decisions that are not wholly amenable to an open source development approach. Our contributions in this article include describing two methods to effectively manage COS assets: an Infrastructure-based COS model, and a Project-specific COS model. We report experiences with the management aspects of the latter COS model, which includes our findings that this model requires a greater amount of support to get a new business division onboard when compared to the minimal support provided by traditional open source projects. However, the benefits of Project-specific COS outweigh the costs once the business division is fully on-board: the development costs are amortized over the number of divisions using the common asset, and the asset itself benefits from contributions from the expanded use. Open source practices and tools have proven potential to overcome many of the well-known difficulties of geographically distributed software development, and to allow widely distributed users of software to add features and functionality they want with a minimum of conflict and management overhead. Dinkelacker et al. discuss Progressive Open Source as a set of tools and techniques for a corporation to host multiple open source projects within a company and between third parties. In the context of their work, our work on COS corresponds to and furthers their work on what is referred to as "Inner Source" in their paper. Our previous work attempted to determine whether open source tools and practices are a good fit for developing commercial-grade software especially in the light of the differences between the two camps: open source development is more iterative in nature when compared to the staged method of software development practiced at many corporations; the incentive structure between the two varies, as does the motivation factor; commercial software is usually characterized by process methodologies (CMMI, ISO, TL9000, among others), that are typically absent in open source development. We reached the conclusion that certain commercial projects can indeed benefit from open source development methodology, especially those projects where: • a technology is needed by several product groups (hence there is reason to pool resources), • the technology is relatively immature so that requirements and features are not fully known at the outset (so there is a need to evolve continuously), • product groups have different needs and specific expertise in customizing the software for their needs (so everyone benefits from the contributions of each group), and • the initial product has a sound, modular architecture (so that it is feasible to merge all the diverse changes into a single development branch). Furthering our previous work, the discussion in this article presents a management view of maintaining a COS asset. We discuss project management and planning aspects that are intrinsic to projects managed in this style.

An information systems design product theory for the class of integrated requirements and release management systems

AbstractHigh‐tech companies conducting product development need to collect and analyze requirements effectively, plan and implement releases, and allocate requirements to appropriate releases. Requirements and release management are complicated because development activities typically are scattered across multiple sites, involve multiple partners in different countries, leverage various development methods and tools, and are realized through various organizational arrangements such as release projects in organizations structured around products and permanent release teams in organizations responsible for the long‐term development and maintenance of strategic software and hardware assets. Flexible, scalable, and secure groupware‐based support for the activities provides substantial payoffs. Yet, the extant literature provides little theoretical guidance for designing and using requirements and release management systems (RRMS) in multi‐site, multi‐partner environments. This article develops the meta‐requirements and a meta‐design of an Information Systems Design Product Theory for the class of RRMS based on a case study in a global company and a literature review. The theory is scalable to meet the needs of global companies but simple enough so that small and medium‐sized companies can also leverage it to implement requirements and release management solutions. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Optimized Software Licensing – Combining License Types in a License Portfolio

Although software licenses usually range among the most expensive items within the IT budget, they still lack the necessary attention by many companies. Therefore, most companies inadequately have implemented their software asset management neglecting further potential for cost reduction, which can be obtained by optimizing the use of different license types. This paper shows how possible savings can be realized by combining different types of licenses in a license portfolio. The model presented is based on the most common license types considering different user groups as well as their behavior. Additionally to cost risks, the risk of service quality is also taken into consideration. The following examples illustrate the model’s high relevance and show how it can be applied in practice.

Model-based context-aware deployment of distributed systems

Software deployment deals with the transition of software assets from production to consumers' sites. Distributed systems are created by combination of multiple software components at runtime, possibly running on different devices over a network, making the problem of deployment harder than in the case of centralized systems. This article presents a model for the description of software components, distributed systems, and their dependencies, and a mechanism that uses them to automate the deployment of software units onto devices. These have been implemented and validated in a case study, the digital home, which demonstrated its feasibility.

소프트웨어 자산관리를 위한 패키지소프트웨어 점검서비스 구현

국제적인 규제와 정부차원의 지원과 관리가 이뤄지고 있음에도 불구하고 일반기업 등에서는 여전히 소프트웨어자산에 대한 인식과 관리 소홀의 문제점을 안고 있다. 이는 관리해야 할 소프트웨어자산의 범위가 모호할 뿐 아니라 소프트웨어의 특성상 복사 및 설치가 쉽고 눈에 보이지 않아 관리 자체가 어렵기 때문이다. 즉 기업의 소프트웨어관리자는 구매부터 조달, 배포, 유지, 처분까지의 전체적인 소프트웨어 라이프사이클의 각 단계별로 수시로 변화되는 정보를 정확히 확인하고 관리하기가 쉽지 않다는 문제점이 있다. 따라서 본 논문에서는 이를 해결하기 위해서 개발된 점검용 시스템인 Inspector를 활용할 것을 제안한다. 제안된 점검서비스에는 패키지 소프트웨어의 특성을 고려한 검색기법이 구현되었고, 소프트웨어의 권리관리 정보를 표준화하였으며, 레지스트리 정보를 활용하였다. Inspector를 사용한 결과 PC 1대당 점검시간이 획기적으로 단축되었다. 이러한 효과 이외에도 소프트웨어를 효과적으로 관리함으로써 소프트웨어 구입비용을 절감할 수 있도록 지원하여 경영합리화에 이바지하는 것으로 나타났다. Even support-and-management efforts by government are enforced with the growing international restrictions for complying with global standard, not a few private enterprises are still suffering software management problems from lack of understanding the software asset management and carelessness of the software management. This is due to the ambiguous scope of software asset management as well as characteristics of software property such as invisibility, easiness of copy and installation. In other words, it is not easy for software managers to comply all the information throughout the software life cycle; from purchasing, procurement. distribution, preservation to disposition. Therefore, Inspector which has been developed for resolving these problems are proposed in this study. The inspection service consists of search algorithms adapted for software characteristics, standardization of software right management information, and practical use of registry information. Inspection time for a PC by using inspector make the inspection time much shorter. It is also shown that effective software management enables the enterprise to curtail software acquisition cost and to help rationalizing its business management.

A Model-Based Method to Design an Application Common Platform for Enterprise Information Systems

This paper presents a model-based method to design a software platform, called an application common platform for developments of enterprise information systems. This application common platform(ACP) wraps existing reusable software assets to hide their details from application developers and provide domain level application programming interfaces, so that reusability of software assets and productivity of application improve. In this paper, we present a software architecture which organizes applications, ACP, and software assets and illustrate a development process of ACP. Especially, we show design rules to derive ACP design models from application design models and software assets design models. We also define metrics of reusability and productivity and evaluate the proposed method through real developments of enterprise information systems. As a result, the proposed method reduced 20% of development cost compared to estimation cost.

Code Conjurer: Pulling Reusable Software out of Thin Air

For many years, the IT industry has sought to accelerate the software development process by assembling new applications from existing software assets. However, true component-based reuse of the form Douglas Mcllroy envisaged in the 1960s is still the exception rather than the rule, and most of the systematic software reuse practiced today uses heavyweight approaches such as product-line engineering or domain-specific frameworks. By component, we mean any cohesive and compact unit of software functionality with a well-defined interface - from simple programming language classes to more complex artifacts such as Web services and Enterprise JavaBeans.

Managing the invisible assets [programmable logic controller

Introducing a new process into the plant requires managing the software - not just the hardware - when it comes to PLCs . The programmable controller (PLC) is the most vital control element in the manufacturing environment, yet the development and procurement of PLC programming services is ad hoc, often resulting in efficiency and maintenance problems. Those problems contribute to poor overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) figures and a resultant financial losses. Hardware assets tend to be fairly obvious to a company, but software assets can be neglected simply because they are invisible. And yet software assets control the machines and processes. The support documentation for those assets attests to the quality of the PLC program development process and is a useful tool for solving hardware and software maintenance problems. Anybody responsible for a plant's software systems would do well to look at the PLC documentation, to check how detailed it is and whether it contributes positively to the maintenance function.

Technical framework for Internetware: An architecture centric approach

Being a new software paradigm evolved by the Internet, Internetware brings many challenges to the traditional software methods and techniques. Sponsored by the national basic research program (973), researchers in China have developed an architecture centric technical framework for the definition, incarnation and engineering of Internetware. First of all, a software model for Internetware is defined for what to be, including that Internetware entities should be packaged as components, behaving as agents, interoperating as services, collaborating in a structured and on demand manner, etc. Secondly, a middleware for Internetware is designed and implemented for how to be, including that Internetware entities are incarnated by runtime containers, structured collaborations are enabled by runtime software architecture, Internetware can be managed in a reflective and autonomic manner, etc. Thirdly, an engineering methodology for Internetware is proposed for how to do, including the way to develop Internetware entities and their collaborations by transforming and refining a set of software architectures which cover all the phases of software lifecycle, the way to identify and organize the disordered software assets by domain modeling, etc.

The Bazaar inside the Cathedral: Business Models for Internal Markets

Software product-line development lets organizations better optimize software development efficiency by building a shared set of assets for reuse in multiple products. This process introduces many challenges, not least of which is creating the initial set of reusable software assets. To accomplish this, organizations often establish a central software platform group. Such a group faces a serious problem: existing systems groups already have a large set of software components that they use to build their products. If companies are to successfully transition to product-line development, these systems groups must shift their investments from existing software components to the new reusable product-line assets. One way to encourage this is to create an internal open source software community that lets systems groups actively contribute their existing components to the platform. In OSS, a community works together to develop software. Because the software's users are part of the community, they can add the assets they need. Inner-source-software (ISS) development applies OSS within a limited environment that has a closed border (such as a company, a division, or a consortium). So, companies using the ISS approach essentially establish an OSS community within the confines of their organization.

Fuzzy inference system for software product family process evaluation

When developing multiple products within a common application domain, systematic use of a software product family process can yield increased productivity in cost, quality, effort and schedule. Such a process provides the means for the reuse of software assets which can considerably reduce the development time and the cost of software products. A comprehensive strategy for the evaluating the maturity of a software product family process is needed due to growing popularity of this concept in the software industry. In this paper, we propose a five-level maturity scale for software product family process. We also present a fuzzy inference system for evaluating maturity of software product family process using the proposed maturity scale. This research is aimed at establishing a comprehensive and unified strategy for process evaluation of a software product family. Such a process evaluation strategy will enable an organization to discover and monitor the strengths and weaknesses of the various activities performed during development of multiple products within a common application domain.

Testing Software Assets of Framework-Based Product Families During Application Engineering Stage

An application framework provides reusable design and implementation for a family of software systems. At the application engineering stage, application developers extend framework assets to build their particular framework instantiations. Typically, framework software assets are tested before being used. However, achieving complete coverage of a system under test is impossible or at least impractical. Therefore, framework software assets can have undiscovered errors that appear in some instantiations. During the application engineering stage, it is important to identify the framework use cases that are used in the instantiation but not covered during the framework testing stage. In this paper, a testing model that considers retesting framework assets during the application engineering stage is proposed. In addition, a test-case-reusing technique is introduced to identify uncovered framework use cases and cover them by reusing the test cases already built during the framework domain engineering stage. Empirical studies are reported to show the adequacy of the proposed framework test-case-reusing technique in terms of reducing testing time and effort, and a supporting tool that automates the proposed test-case-reusing technique is developed and introduced.

Construction of a software distribution system based on software asset management

Construction of a software distribution system based on software asset management