Software Evolution and Modernisation

Abstract

This chapter presents in overview on the basics and current approaches in the area of software evolution and modernisation that are important in the context of MARE. Section 3.1 introduces the broad field of reengineering of which architec-ture restructuring is a subdiscipline. Section 3.2 gives a broad overview on migra-tion which is a field of application for MARE. Reverse engineering, as described in Section 3.3 is used in MARE to gain knowledge about the existing system that is needed for the creation of the complete mapping. Section 3.4 introduces ar-chitecture reconstruction, which is a field of application of related approaches to MARE, which use similar methods. Sections 3.5 describes restructuring and archi-tecture restructuring. It presents the current state of the art and related approaches of MARE with similar goals. Software systems evolve over time. The evolution has several reasons and dif-ferent scales during the software life cycle. The evolutionary process of software after its delivery is called software maintenance. The ISO/IEC (2006) defines soft-ware maintenance as follows: