Kenza Meridji

Early identification, specification and measurement for data definition and database requirements

The European ECSS series of standards for the aerospace industry includes data definition and database requirements as one of sixteen types of non functional requirement (NFR) for embedded and real time software. A number of data definition and database related concepts are dispersed throughout the ECSS standards to describe at varying levels of details the various types of candidate data definition and database requirements at the system, software, and hardware levels. This paper organizes these dispersed data definition and database concepts into a generic standards-based reference model of system data definition and database requirements.

A standards-based framework of software configuration derived from system requirements

The European ECSS series of standards for the aerospace industry includes system configuration requirements as one of sixteen types of Non-Functional Requirement NFR for embedded and real time software. A number of concepts are provided in the ECSS, ISO standards to describe the various types of candidate configuration requirements at the system, software and hardware levels. This paper organises these dispersed configuration concepts into a standards-based framework of system configuration requirements allocated to software. The availability of this framework at the functional and service levels can facilitate the early identification, specification and measurement of the system configuration-NFR and their detailed allocation as specific configuration functions to be handled by the specified allocation to hardware or software or in a specific combination of both. In the absence of such standards-based framework and detailed model, such NFR requirements are typically handled in practice much later on in the software development life cycle when at system testing time, users and developers find out that a number of configuration requirements have been overlooked and additional work has to be expanded to implement them.

A standard-based reference framework for system operations requirements

European series of standards for the aerospace industry, includes system operations requirements as one of 16 types of NFRs for embedded and real-time systems. A number of concepts are provided in the ECSS and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IEEE standards to describe the various types of candidate operations requirements at the system, software and hardware levels. In the absence of such a generic and detailed model, these NFRs are typically handled much later on in the software development life cycle, when, at system testing time, users and developers may discover that a number of system operations requirements have been overlooked and additional work is required to implement them. This paper organises these dispersed operations concepts into a standards-based reference framework of system operations requirements.

A Standard Based Reference Framework for System Adaptation and Installation Requirements

The European standards for the aerospace industry (ECSS series) include system adaptation and installations requirements as one of sixteen types of non functional requirements (NFR) for embedded and real-time software. A number of concepts are provided in the ECSS, ISO 9126 and IEEE standards to describe the various types of candidate adaptation and installation requirements at the system, software, and hardware levels. This paper collects and organizes these adaptation and installation-related descriptions into a generic model for the specification of software adaptation and installation requirements, and to measure their functional size for estimation purposes using the COSMIC ISO 19761 standard.

A generic measurement model for system data definition and database requirements

Data definition and database requirements are considered one of the 16 types of Non-Functional Requirements NFRs for embedded and real-time software at the system level, which may lead to specific reference database models and standard data definitions. According to ECSS standards series, a reference model for a standard data definition and database requirement could be defined by the data requirements and the corresponding mission data provided by a supplier to a customer. A number of concepts and terms are provided to describe various types of candidate system model objects, which are composed of the data model requirements and data mission. This paper organises these data definitions and database-related requirements into a generic model of the requirement for software data definition and database; this generic model corresponds to a standard-based framework for modelling software-NFR for data definitions and database. This size may be used next to improve software project estimates.

A generic model for the specification of software reliability requirements and measurement of their functional size

Currently, ISO-9126 standards for the software product quality include reliability as one of the quality characteristics for the embedded and real time software products. According to ISO, software reliability requirements can be measured internally and externally. Furthermore, ECSS standards focus on the reliability prediction of components. It allows identifying data sources and respective methods for an application. This paper presents a method for measuring the functional size of the reliability requirements of software product. The proposed method suggests a generic measurement model to locate the functional size of the reliability requirements. This functional size is based on the concepts of the ISO-19761 standard, which allows to measure on the basis of the requirements, whether the software has already been delivered or to be built.

A Comprehensive Survey of Software Development Cost Estimation Studies

Context: Cost estimation of software projects is critical activity which requires the use of proper techniques and methods in order to have a good estimation results. This task is facing many obstacles which make it somehow challenging. The software size and how accurately it has been measured greatly affects the accuracy of the estimation. Also project management plays vital role in guiding such estimation processes. A lot of research effort has been accomplished which reflects the increasing demands of high quality software through effective cost estimation. Purpose: To summarize and differentiate existing literature related to the cost estimation methods and techniques as away to identify estimation model fundamentals based on the analysis of the already available cost estimation models, also trying to identify the possible gaps in this research area. Scheme: The methodology is based on the survey research method with well defined steps. Outcomes: The survey search process found as preliminary results 274 papers associated to our topic from strong online databases, around 20 papers have been included in this survey and only 13 studies were selected for in-depth analysis. Data were extracted from these studies and synthesized in respect to the formulated Research questions. The survey results has shown that there are many models for cost estimation and the challenge is which one to use in specific software context, but still there are some commonly used models in both industry and academia. Conclusion: The result of our work confirm that in order to have an accurate estimation process many software metrics need to be analyzed and used in estimation model or in a combination of models, and the estimation of software needs a lot of data and inputs to be accurate to meets expectation, this can be achieved using benchmarking of datasets.

Towards a framework for quantifying system non-functional data definition and database requirements

In practice, during the system requirements gathering phase, the focus is often on the functional requirements of the system, while non-functional requirements are often captured by system analysts at a very global level. The European ECSS series of standards for the aerospace industry includes data definition and database requirements as one of sixteen types of non-functional requirement NFR for embedded and real time systems. A number of data definition and database related concepts are dispersed throughout the ECSS standards to describe at varying levels of details the various types of candidate data definition and database requirements at the system, software, and hardware levels. This paper organises these dispersed data definition and database concepts into a standards-based reference framework of system data definition and database requirements. The availability of this generic, and detailed, reference model can facilitate the early identification and specification of the system data definition and database-NFR and their detailed allocation as specific data definition and database functions to be handled by the specified allocation to hardware, software or in a specific combination of both.

Model of system configuration requirements and measurement of their functional size

Currently, software development organisations are expected to deliver projects on time and on budget in a context of fixed-price contracts. The main goal of this research paper is to design a new configuration model using, as a basis, the European International standards ECSS-E-40 and ECSS-Q-80B together with the ISO-19761, for measuring in particular the embedded software. Measurement of such non-functional requirements NFRs should be feasible and as early as possible in software engineering projects. The motivation for this research project is to contribute to improve some of the inputs required for cost estimation techniques for embedded software, more specifically the measurement of NFRs.

Towards apriori and posteriori estimation models for renewable energy projects in software engineering

Currently, cost estimation for renewable energy projects is one of the important issues in software engineering projects. It has been observed in the industry that cost estimates of renewable energy projects often differ from the final costs by a factor of two or more; such large overestimates impact on process integrity and, ultimately, on final quality. RE development organizations are expected to deliver projects on time and on budget in a context of fixed-price contracts. To meet these market demands, managers must determine well in advance such estimates which called is the apriori cost estimation. These organizations typically use an estimation techniques based either on informal personal or organizational experience, or on aposteriori estimation models developed internally or developed by outside consultancy. This paper collects most of the common used models of the cost estimation models throughout the apriori and aposteriori contexts, and we highlights some of their mixed uses between these estimating models in software engineering development projects for RE and lists some of the estimating techniques used in A priori and A posteriori contexts.