Evaluating the Integrability of COTS Components — Software Product Family Viewpoint

Summary

COTS (Commercial-Off-The-Shelf) components are increasingly used in product family-based software engineering. Within product families, components are assembled using a disciplined process and a common product family architecture. However, the black-box nature of COTS components and insufficient component documentation make the integration of components difficult. Successful component integration requires that the component match the functional, quality, and system requirements and interoperate with other components of the systems family. Ensuring component integrability is an important task, especially within product families, where the ineffective use of COTS components can cause extensive and long-term problems. This chapter discusses the characteristics of architecture, components, and product families that affect the integrability of COTS components, as well as the evaluation techniques that an integrator can use in the assessment of the integration capability of COTS components.