Abdul Azim Abdul Ghani

OBSTACLES IN MOVING TO AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT METHODS; AT A GLANCE

It is only less than a decade that agile SD methods were introduced and got popular steadily. The defined values in these methods and their outcomes have motivated many software producers to use these methods. Since migration from traditional sof tware development methods to agile methods is growing highly, managers of the companies should be aware of problems, hindrances and challenges they may face with during the agile transformation process. This study focused on challenges which companies may face with and it is necessary that ma nagers think about solving them. Classifying them into four main categories; organization and management, people, process and tools are the areas that challenges have been seen in recent studies.

Unit Testing Approaches for BPEL: A Systematic Review

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a new architectural style for developing distributed business applications. Nowadays, those applications are realized through web services, which are later grouped as web service compositions. Web service compositions language, like the BPELWS 2.0 standard, are extensions of imperative programming languages. Additionally, it presents a challenge for traditional white-box testing, due to its inclusion of specific instructions, concurrency, fault compensation and dynamic service discovery and invocation. In fact, there is a lack of unit testing approaches and tools, which has resulted in inefficient practices in testing and debugging of automated business processes. Therefore, we performed a systematic review study to analyze 27 different studies for unit testing approaches for BPEL. This paper aims to focus on a comprehensive review to identify a categorization, a description of test case generation approaches, empirical evidence, current trends in BPEL studies, and finally to end with future work for other researchers.

A mapping study to investigate component-based software system metrics

A component-based software system (CBSS) is a software system that is developed by integrating components that have been deployed independently. In the last few years, many researchers have proposed metrics to evaluate CBSS attributes. However, the practical use of these metrics can be difficult. For example, some of the metrics have concepts that either overlap or are not well defined, which could hinder their implementation. The aim of this study is to understand, classify and analyze existing research in component-based metrics, focusing on approaches and elements that are used to evaluate the quality of CBSS and its components from a component consumers point of view. This paper presents a systematic mapping study of several metrics that were proposed to measure the quality of CBSS and its components. We found 17 proposals that could be applied to evaluate CBSSs, while 14 proposals could be applied to evaluate individual components in isolation. Various elements of the software components that were measured are reviewed and discussed. Only a few of the proposed metrics are soundly defined. The quality assessment of the primary studies detected many limitations and suggested guidelines for possibilities for improving and increasing the acceptance of metrics. However, it remains a challenge to characterize and evaluate a CBSS and its components quantitatively. For this reason, much effort must be made to achieve a better evaluation approach in the future.

Modification of standard function point complexity weights system

Function Point (FP) is a software size measure, which includes the standard FP and many different models derived from it. The standard FP method created by Albrecht in 1979 is currently known as the International FP User group (IFPUG) version, which consists of three main parts: The first part is five components, and the second is the complexity weights that include three levels of complexity; simple, average, and complex. The third part is the general system characteristics of software projects, which consists of 14 technical complexity factors. Although, FP was widely used as a software size measure, but it still suffers from many weaknesses. One of which is the subjectivity in the weights system. In this paper a new FP weights system was established using Artificial Neural Networks. This method is a modification of the complexity weights of FP measure (IFPUG version). The final results were very accurate and much suitable when they were applied on real data sets of software projects.

A new security model to prevent denial-of-service attacks and violation of availability in wireless networks

Wireless networks are deployed in many critical areas, such as health care centers, hospitals, police departments, and airports. In these areas, communication through the networks plays a vital role, and real-time connectivity along with constant availability of the networks is highly important. However, one of the most serious threats against the networks availability is the denial-of-service attacks. In wireless networks, clear text form of control frames is a security flaw that can be exploited by the attackers to bring the wireless networks to a complete halt. To prevent the denial-of-service attacks against the wireless networks, we propose two distinct security models. The models are capable of preventing the attacks by detecting and discarding the forgery control frames belonging to the attackers. The models are implemented and evaluated under various experiments and trials. The results have proved that the proposed models significantly improve the security performance of the wireless networks. This gives advantage of safe communication that can substantially enhance the network availability while maintaining the quality of the network performance. Copyright

The impact of inadequate and dysfunctional training on Agile transformation process: A Grounded Theory study

Context Training is an essential facilitator in moving from traditional to Agile software development. Objective This paper addresses the importance of adequate and functional training in Agile transformation process, the causes of inadequate and dysfunctional training, and the heuristic strategies that can be used in software companies for dealing with this phenomenon. Method A Grounded Theory study was conducted with participation of 35 Agile experts from 13 different countries. Results This research discovered that inadequate and dysfunctional training was one of the critical issues that affected Agile transformation process. This study shows that comprehensive and functional training is not often provided to support Agile transformation. This paper shows the primary causes of inadequate and dysfunctional training, its adverse consequences on the transformation process, and the heuristic and ad-hoc treatments as the strategies used by Agile teams to cope with this challenge. Conclusion Comprehensive training is important in Agile transformation process. Inadequate and dysfunctional training causes several challenges and problems for software companies and development teams when moving to Agile. Several ad-hoc strategies identified by this study can be employed to help software teams and companies facing similar problems.

An Investigation into Methods and Concepts of Qualitative Research in Information System Research

This paper is an initial review of literature, investigating qualitative research, to show its relevance in information system disciplines. Qualitative research involves the use of qualitative data, such as interviews, documents, and participant observation data, to understand and explain social phenomena. Qualitative research can be found in many disciplines and fields, using a variety of approaches, methods and techniques. In Information Systems (IS), there has been a general shift in information system research away from technological to managerial and organizational issues, hence an increasing interest in the application of qualitative research methods. Frequently used methods are the action research, case study, ethnography and grounded theory. Review of each research approaches in qualitative methods, will be discussed. Important considerations in the methods are identified, and cases for each research method are described. Then we will present some benefits and limitations of each method. Based on the result, a framework of an action research was proposed and might be useful in starting a research project in information system using qualitative method.

An Ensemble of Complexity Metrics for BPEL Web Processes

So far a significant amount of research has been done on the complexity of software programs, and various software complexity metrics have been developed but few researches on process complexity measurement, especially BPEL processes, has yet been carried out. Since several organizations have already realized the potential of using the Business Process Execution Language for Web Service (BPEL4WS) to model the behavior of web services in business processes we feel however, that it is important to focus on complexity metrics to evaluate the complexity of BPEL processes because in some cases, BPEL process deigns can be highly complex and consequently can result in several undesirable drawbacks. Analyzing the complexity via metrics at all the stages of process deign and development helps avoid these drawbacks. This paper analyzes the complexity metrics of BPEL web process that have been proposed by earlier researches and addresses the issues related to development of these metrics. We believe that our work contributes to a better understanding of BPEL complexity and can be used as a reference for those who want to analyze the design of web processes using measurement strategies.

A Survey on Aspect-Oriented Testing Approaches

Research on testing approaches for different programming paradigms has been done for several years. However, aspect-oriented programming (AOP), a relatively new programming paradigm, has properties that other programming paradigms do not have. These characteristics bring new challenges and issues not present when testing other types of programs such as object oriented programs (OOPs). So this new paradigm can not provide correctness by itself, and thus it also, like any other programs, requires the use of systematic testing approaches to produce validated and high quality software. This paper surveys the research on testing AOPs, the testing approaches that are being proposed, and issues that arise when testing AOPs. The effectiveness of proposed approaches is compared in terms of their ability to find different kind of faults as described by [6]. By making comparison on AOPs testing approaches, a better understanding of these approaches and issues related in testing AOPs is provided, as well as conclusion about existing state of research in this area and future trends for testing of aspect-oriented is identified.

Comparing Between Web Application Effort Estimation Methods

Effort estimation consist in predict how many hours of work and how many workers are needed to develop a project. This is important in the process of project management. As far as estimation and prediction are concerned there are still a number of unsolved problems and errors. To obtain good results it is essential to take into consideration any previous projects. Estimation the project manager has not yet been solved and even the project manager has to deal with it since the beginning. Measurement can play a significant role in the effective management and development of Web applications. It provides the scientific basis for Web engineering to become true engineering discipline effective Web project estimation is one of the most important activities in Web development. Proper project planning and control is not possible without a sound and reliable estimate. Although estimating the effort required in developing Web applications is a difficult task, accurate estimates of development effort have an important role to play in the successful management of Web development projects. This paper is a review about Web effort estimation entities, attributes, and methods from the other earlier researches and at last compare these methods to each other.