COTS-Based Development: Taking the Pulse of a Project

Abstract

Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS¹)-based systems demand new indicators for determining a project’s progress and it’s potential for success. Research by the COTS-based system (CBS²) Initiative at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) has shown that organizations building, acquiring, or supporting systems that rely on COTS products experience a consistent set, or pattern, of problems. These patterns provide the foundation for SEI seminars and workshops that present high-level keys to success along with activities or artifacts to look for in successful COTS-based system projects. These same patterns underlie the SEI COTS usage risk evaluation (CURE) technique for conducting a detailed risk analysis of the use of COTS products within an ongoing project. This paper reports on work that expands these efforts to provide an easily used mechanism to help organizations avoid inadequate practices and employ improved ones-in effect, to allow program managers to take the pulse of their COTS-based projects.

We consider a COTS product to be one that is sold or licensed on a for-profit basis to the general public by a vendor that retains intellectual property rights.

We call systems that make important and extensive use of COTS products, COTSbased systems (CBS)