Optimizing COTS Selection Process Using Prototype Framework Approach: A Theoritical Concept

Software engineering is a field which is an essential part of all the organizations and business. In broad sense it affects the global economy. It helps in optimizing resources and minimizing the cost by incorporating reusability property. One good example of using reusability is Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS). COTS is a common name in software industry now-a-days. COTS based systems can be developed with less time period and less budget. There are existing development processes for COTS where once the requirement analysis is done, the COTS are selected from different vendors based on those requirements. Then the different COTS are integrated using glue code and interfaces. Finally the product is tested and ready for installation. The main drawback in this existing system is that after acceptance testing if there is a discrepancy between the customer requirement and system function then the system should get modified. This modification may include exclusion of some COTS already used in the product, inclusion of some new COTS and change in the glue code. So finally it affects the performance of the system in terms of effort and cost of quality. This paper will describe a framework for COTS development to remove this drawback where we will not integrate different COTS until and unless the prototype of the system does not get accepted by the customer.