Conceptual architecture for the assessment and improvement of software maintenance

  • Authors:

  • Félix García;Francisco Ruiz;Mario Piattini;Macario Polo

  • Affiliations:

  • Alarcos Research Group, Escuela Superior de Informática, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Paseo de la Universidad, 4, 13071, Ciudad Real (España);Alarcos Research Group, Escuela Superior de Informática, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Paseo de la Universidad, 4, 13071, Ciudad Real (España);Alarcos Research Group, Escuela Superior de Informática, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Paseo de la Universidad, 4, 13071, Ciudad Real (España);Alarcos Research Group, Escuela Superior de Informática, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Paseo de la Universidad, 4, 13071, Ciudad Real (España)

  • Venue:
  • Enterprise information systems IV
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

The management of software processes is a complex activity due to the great number of different aspects to be considered. For this reason it is useful to establish a conceptual architecture which includes all the aspects necessary to be able to manage this complexity. The fundamental element in all conceptual architecture is constituted by meta-data, which, organized in different levels of modeling, can be used to manage effectively the complexity of the software processes and especially the maintenance process (Pigosky, 1996). In this study we present a conceptual architecture of 4 levels to represent and manage the assessment and improvement of software process by means of the definition of the appropriate models and meta-models. This architecture is based on the standard MOF (Meta object Facility) proposed by the Object Management Group (OMG,2000). In particular this architecture includes all the necessary aspects for carrying out the assessment and improvement of the Software Maintenance Process (SMP) and allows us to represent the different data and meta-data used in its management by means of the modeling of concepts at different levels of abstraction: meta-models of generic processing, models of software processes, concrete software processes (in our case, that of the assessment of other processes) and instances of carrying out a specific process. As a support to this architecture we present MANTIS- Metamod, a tool for the modeling of software processes based on the concepts discussed previously. MANTIS- Metamod is a component of MANTIS, an integral environment for the management of the SMP, including its assessment and improvement.