Abstract:
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The use of quality models during the selection of Commercial, Off-The-Shelf
(COTS) products provides a framework for the description of the domains
which the COTS products belong to. Descriptions of COTS products and user
quality requirements may be translated into the quality concepts defined in
the model, making selection more efficient and reliable. In this paper we
address the construction of quality models for Composite COTS-based Software
Systems (CCSS), defined as systems that are composed by several
interconnected COTS products. Selection processes carried out when procuring
a CCSS require not a single COTS product to be selected but a set of them.
As a consequence, instead of a classical quality model, we need a more
elaborated one, defined as the composition of those models that belong to
the domains of the COTS products that form the CCSS. We propose a method
aimed at supporting the construction of quality models for CCSS as a
composition of four activities. Most of the new quality features that appear
in the CCSS model are defined in terms of the quality features of the
component COTS products. As a result, we obtain quality models easier to
understand, maintain and reuse, as well as compliant with the ISO/IEC 9126-1
quality standard. |