Reiner R. Dumke

Software Maintenance Maturity Model (SMmm): the software maintenance process model

SUMMARY We address the assessment and improvement of the software maintenance function by proposing improvements to the software maintenance standards and introducing a proposed maturity model for daily software maintenance activities: Software Maintenance Maturity Model (SM mm ). The software maintenance function suffers from a scarcity of management models to facilitate its evaluation, management, and continuous improvement. The SM mm addresses the unique activities of software maintenance while preserving a structure similar to that of the CMMi ©4 maturity model. It is designed to be used as a complement to this model. The SM mm is based on practitioners’ experience, international standards, and the seminal literature on software maintenance. We present the model’s purpose, scope, foundation, and architecture, followed by its initial validation. Copyright

Software Process and Product Measurement

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the International Workshop on Software Measurement, IWSM-Mensura 2007, held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, in November 2007. The 16 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers deal with aspects of software measurement like function-points measurement, effort and cost estimates, prediction, industrial experiences in software measurement, planning and implementing measurement, measurement-based software process improvement, best practices in software measurement, usability and user interaction measurement, measurement of open source projects, teaching and learning software measurement as well as new trends and ontologies for software measurement.

Performance Modeling of WS-BPEL-Based Web Service Compositions

This paper addresses quality of service aspects of Web service orchestrations created using WS-BPEL from the standpoint of a Web service integrator. A mathematical model based on operations research techniques and formal semantics of WS-BPEL is proposed to estimate and forecast the influence of the execution of orchestrated processes on utilization and throughput of individual involved nodes and of the whole system. This model is applied to the optimization of service levels agreement process between the involved parties

SM/sup CMM/ model to evaluate and improve the quality of the software maintenance process

Software maintenance function suffers from a scarcity of management models that would facilitate its evaluation, management and continuous improvement. This paper is part of a series of papers that presents a software maintenance capability maturity model (SM/sup CMM/). The contributions of this specific paper are: 1) to describe the key references of software maintenance; 2) to present the model update process conducted during 2003; and 3) to present, for the first time, the updated architecture of the model.

Software Metrics for Agile Software Development

Agile software development methods are nowadays wide spread and accepted. From the software measurement point-of-view not all metrics and methods from conventional lifecycle models can be used without adaptation. Distinct techniques in agile software development like refactoring needs new approaches and quality models in the area of software measurement. Therefore this paper describes a quality model, distinct metrics and their implementation into a measurement tool for quality management in agile software development.

Techniques of Successful Application of Factor Analysis in Software Measurement

Metrics in a software sense can be roughly divided into two groups, internal metrics and external metrics. Internal metrics can be measured directly, while external metrics are predicted using internal metrics. Factor analysis is a statistical technique which can be applied to analyze the structure of internal metrics and form a prediction model for external metrics A prediction model generated by using factor analysis needs further validation since factor analysis has a non-unique solution for the factor-loading matrix. The computational methodology to establish a model is presented as well as the validation process. This is illustrated by an empirical study of design metrics and a prediction model for design quality.

Research directions in verification & validation process improvement

Software process establishment, evaluation and improvement are key research areas in the software engineering field today. Extensive research has been carried out and many different kinds of approaches exist to improve the software process and even more efforts are underway. Verification & validation process, which is part of the broader software process activities, plays a vital role in quality and profitability of the developed product but is believed to consume major portion of the development expenses and resources. Probably, research towards improving the verification & validation process has not been as actively directed as compared to software process improvement research. This paper identifies several potential future research directions towards improving verification and validation process.

SLA management - challenges in the context of Web-service-based infrastructures

This paper gives a first insight in an ongoing investigation. Our generic aim is to describe the current situation of available Web services in context with their quality of service (short QoS) behavior. The current quality behavior of offered Web Services should be evaluated in particular as an important aspect of an effective service level management. After providing an introduction to Web service technology, this contribution primarily aims to describe the topic of service level agreements (short SLA) management in such environments. In this context, we will highlight the general contents of SLA agreements, describe the interaction chain for service provision that arises in Web-service-based solutions, and provide a brief explanation of the opportunities offered by the WSLA framework that IBM has developed especially for Web services. Finally we describe the conception, prototypical development and the possible application of a measurement service for monitoring the quality behavior of a specific Web service. This measurement service can be used to support service level agreements.

Metrics-based evaluation of object-oriented software development methods

The efficiency of software development (i.e. producing good software products based on an efficient software process) must be controlled by a quantification of the software development methodologies. This is a main aspect of a successful method/technology change in the area of software maintenance as a means of method adaptation. The descriptions of object-oriented (OO) methods or comparisons of some of these features are usually given by a listing of their features. These descriptions describe the functionality of a particular development method but often fail to address quality issues like efficiency, maintainability, portability, maturity, etc. This paper describes the evaluation of technology change related to OO development methods. It discusses the applicability of metrics-based evaluation as an indicator of the quality assurance of the OO development process.

Quality Assurance of Agent-Based and Self-Managed Systems

Based on the authors more than fifteen years of experience in software agent technology, this book first presents the essential basics, aspects, and structures of the agent technology. It then covers the main quality aspects in software system development and gives current examples of agent measurement and evaluation. Focusing on software agent systems and multi-agent systems (MAS), the authors discuss the determination of quality properties. They also explain different techniques and approaches to evaluate the development of MAS. The final chapter summarizes quality assurance approaches for agent-based systems and discusses some open problems and future directions.