AIRES: An architecture to improve software reuse

Abstract

Among the several challenges still faced by Software Engineering, software reuse can be listed as a potential solution towards improving productivity and quality, through the utilization of previously produced artifacts that can leverage development activities. Among these artifacts we can mention not only code, but also requirements’ documents, analysis and design models, test cases, documentation, and even development processes that achieved success in the past and could be reused again and again. However, the diversity of methods, processes and tools for software engineering make it difficult to turn reuse into a systematic activity. Considering this context, the present paper aims at presenting an architectural model that encompasses the main elements needed to support software reuse in a large scale. This model, named AIRES, allows reuse to be realized intrinsically to the development process life cycle, providing mechanisms to facilitate a variety of processes and artifacts representation and a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to make assets available to other software engineering environments or tools. The AIRES model is being implemented using open source platforms and will be available within the cloud.