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Constructive
COTS (COCOTS) Model
Lead Personnel: Chris Abts, Ye
Yang
Objectives: Develop a cost estimation model
to capture explicitly the most important costs associated with
COTS-based software development and maintenance.
Approach: At present, COCOTS is designed as
an amalgam of three related sub-models, each addressing individually
what we have identified as the three primary sources of COTS software
integration costs. These are costs due to the effort needed to
perform: (1) candidate COTS component assessment, (2) COTS component
tailoring, and (3) the development and testing of any integration
or "glue" code needed to plug a COTS component into
a larger system.
Assessment is the process by which COTS components are selected
for use in the larger system being developed. Tailoring refers
to those activities that would have to be performed to prepare
a particular COTS program for use, regardless of the system into
which it is being incorporated, or even if operating as a stand-alone
item. These are things such as initializing parameter values,
specifying I/O screens or report formats, setting up security
protocols, etc. Glue code development and testing refers to the
new code external to the COTS component itself that must be written
in order to plug the component into the larger system. This code
by nature is unique to the particular context in which the COTS
component is being used, and must not be confused with tailoring
activity as defined above.
Results:
- C. Abts, B. Boehm, "COTS Software Integration Cost Modeling
Study," USC Tech. Report, June 1997.
- C. Abts, B. Boehm, and B. Clark, "COCOTS: a COTS software
integration cost model," Proceedings ESCOM-SCOPE 2000 Conference.
- C. Abts, "A Perspective on the Economic Life Span of
COTS-based Software Systems: the COTS-LIMO Model," USC
Tech Report, 2000.
Future Plans:
Collecting project data and calibrate COCOTS model.
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