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Content archived on 2024-04-16

A Re-usability Infrastructure for Software Engineering

Objective

ARISE will act as a catalyst in the forming of consensus in the European telecommunications industry on the IBC software development process.

A key part of any software development is the environment: ARISE is preparing statements on development environment architectures that support novel development techniques and permit their integration with existing development methodologies, tools and environments.

The project has the goal of developing and populating a prototype environment that validates ideas submitted for standards consideration. These prototypes will reflect architecture and integration principles and demonstrate their practicality.
The ARISE project has studied the programming infrastructure that will allow the production of high volumes of reliable, complex, real-time software. Tools have been prototyped which will assist in the support of the documentation produced during the software development process.

The project has the goal of developing and populatinga prototype environment that validates ideas submitted for standards consideration. These prototypes will reflect architecture and integration principles and demonstrate their practicality.

The project follows 2 main approaches, in seeking to improve the productivity of software development and management for integrated broadband communications (IBC). A reusability infrastructure for software engineerng (ARISE) is putting significant effort into experimenting with reuse of software, and developing tools to support reuse. The project intends to confirm the potential of reuse and to further develop support for reuse based development methodologies.

The second approach develops the support environment for IBC software engineering. This encompasses the project's architecture and integration studies as well as the prototyping and customization of tools and the environment itself.

The ARISE architecture has been specified, taking into account related proposals from standards bodies and other initiatives. A study on the different integration methods that can be applied to ARISE has been completed. Extensive investigation of integration by event mechanisms and their suitability for tool integration within ARISE have been made.
The process support provided by the environment has been developed and refined in the key areas of quality management, process modelling, configuration management and documentation. The specification of the environment has also been enriched. The configuration management model and the change management prototype have also been developed further, and are being applied, within the project, to much of the production of ARISE software.
The second release of the integrated ARISE prototype environment was demonstrated in October 1991. The core of the environment is a set of generic tools supporting management processes. This is populated with other tools to support the complete software life cy cle.
A new design method, ZOOD, combining the Z specification language and hierarchical object oriented design method (HOOD) has been defined and applied to a few case studies. A component model which includes the documentation of all software life cycle phases has been defined assuming HOOD as the design method.
Technical Approach

The project follows two main approaches, in seeking to improve the productivity of software development and management for IBC. ARISE is putting significant effort into experimenting with reuse of software, and developing tools to support reuse. The project intends to confirm the potential of reuse and to further develop support for reuse-based development methodologies.

The second approach develops the support environment for IBC software engineering. This encompasses the project's architecture and integration studies as well as the prototyping and customisation of tools and the environment itself.

In 1992 two major case studies will be used to validate the ARISE environment:

- an in-house experiment in CET will be performed, to compare the use of the environment populated with a set of tools against existing approaches
- the ARISE environment will be tailored to match requirements from CAP SESA Telecom who will use it in a 'real' multimedia project.

Key Issues

- Software reuse.
- Process support, quality improvements.
- Configuration and change management support.
- Tools and methods for IBC software engineering.

Achievements

The ARISE architecture has been specified, taking into account related proposals from standards bodies and other initiatives. A study on the different integration methods that can be applied to ARISE has been completed. Extensive investigation of 'integration by event' mechanisms and their suitability for tool integration within ARISE have been made.

The process support provided by the environment has been developed and refined in the key areas of quality management, process modelling, configuration management and documentation. The specification of the environment has also been enriched. The configuration management model and the change management prototype have also been developed further, and are being applied, within the project, to much of the production of ARISE software.

The second release of the integrated ARISE prototype environment was demonstrated in October 1991, at the ICB Symposium. The core of the environment is a set of generic tools supporting management processes. This is populated with other tools to support the complete software life cycle. A working prototype of Museion (the Reuse repository) is integrated into the ARISE environment. Museion contains a number of functionalities for classifying, storing, retrieving and analysing reusable information.

A new design method, ZOOD, combining the Z specification language and hierarchical object oriented design method (HOOD) has been defined and applied to a few case studies. A component model which includes the documentation of all software life-cycle phases has been defined assuming HOOD as the design method.

To date the ARISE project has produced 28 major deliverables and more than 30 conference papers. 13 final reports are due in 1992.

Expected Impact

Some results from the ARISE project are suitable for contribution to standardisation organisations. Others will be influencing the de facto industry standards used in the CASE area. A secondary impact may arise in the choice and application of new technology in this field, by European telecommunications industry.

Topic(s)

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Call for proposal

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Funding Scheme

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Coordinator

Broadcom Eireann Research Ltd
EU contribution
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Address
Clanwilliam Place
2 DUBLIN
Ireland

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Participants (11)