Considering variabilities during component selection in product family development

Abstract

Within the last decade, software engineering research and practice has enforced the reuse of existing components and COTS (commercial of the shelf systems). Various processes for evaluating and selecting components and COTS during system design and implementation have been proposed. In this paper we discuss the shortcomings of existing component/COTS selection processes. In contrast to all existing COTS selection processes, we argue that three important facets have to be considered when selecting a COTS for a product family, namely: – the variability to be offered by the product family, – the architectural concerns and – the functional and quality requirements defined for the product family. We discuss the interplay between the component/COTS selection process and the three facets and sketch our selection process CoVAR (Component selection considering Variability, Architectural concerns, and Requirements) which considers all three facets.