Effort Distribution in COTS Components Integration: A Simulation Based Approach
Component Based Development lays emphasis upon composing software from pre-existing commercially off the shelf (COTS) components. Component repositories are searched for the existing components according to requirement specifications and then components are integrated in the system. Though all the components are important for the success of a Component Based Software, some of them may be more important than others. While distributing the cost, efforts, time and other resources, starting from component requirement specification to component integration, we need to differentiate between more and somewhat less important components and distribute the resources accordingly. In this paper we have developed a simulator for identifying the critical components in a component based system for optimum distribution of the resources while integrating the components in the system. This simulator can be used to plan the distribution of available resources in a better way. This will help to overcome the problems of cost and time overrun while integrating and deploying components in a Component Based System (CBS).
