Title: A quality-driven framework for the selection of software components and their composition

Authors: Sofiane Batata; Mohamed Amine Mostefai; Mohamed Ahmed-Nacer

Addresses: Ecole nationale Supérieure d'Informatique (ESI), Bp 68m Oued Smar, 16270, El Harrach, Algiers, Algeria ' Ecole nationale Supérieure d'Informatique (ESI), Bp 68m Oued Smar, 16270, El Harrach, Algiers, Algeria ' Faculty of Electronics and Computer Science, LSI Laboratory, USTHB, Bp 32 El Alia, 16111, Bab Ezzouar, Algiers, Algeria

Abstract: In the component-based software development process, the main concern of the selection activity is not only to find the component that meets the functional requirements, but finding the best one, or the best combination of components that meet these requirements by minimising costs and time to market, and producing high quality software. In this paper, we present a three-phase framework to assist developers in the selection activity. The framework allows users to specify their functional requirements in natural language and to introduce the architectural specifications as well as the quality requirements of the expected components or their composition. The framework uses a faceted characterisation model which allows exploiting both the documentation provided with components, their architectural properties, and their quality characteristics. The selection is performed using information retrieval techniques to measure the functional capacity of components, and uses a suite of metrics to evaluate components and their compositions according to their architectural properties. Finally, their quality is assessed by exploiting the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method for multi-criteria decision-making.

Keywords: component-based software development; software component selection; multi-criteria decision-making; software component quality.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISCM.2014.069385

International Journal of Information Systems and Change Management, 2014 Vol.7 No.2, pp.95 - 114

Received: 25 Apr 2014
Accepted: 29 Jul 2014
Published online: 14 May 2015 *

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