An architectural approach to building systems from COTS software components

Abstract

As software systems become increasingly complex to build developers are turning more and more to integrating pre-built components from third party developers into their systems.This use of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software components in system construction presents new challenges to system architects and designers.This paper is an experience report that describes issues raised when integrating COTS components, outlines strategies for integration, and presents some informal rules we have developed that ease the development and maintenance of such systems.