COTS integration: plug and pray?

For most software applications, the use of commercial off-the-shelf products has become an economic necessity. Gone are the days when upsized industry and government information technology organizations had the luxury of trying to develop-and, at greater expense, maintain their own database, network, and user-interface management infrastructure. Viable COTS products are climbing up the protocol stack, from infrastructure into applications solutions in such areas as office and management support, electronic commerce, finance, logistics, manufacturing, law and medicine. For small and large commercial companies, time-to-market pressures also exert a strong pressure toward COTS-based solutions. However, most organizations have also found that COTS gains are accompanied by frustrating COTS pains. The paper summarizes experience on the relative advantages and disadvantages of COTS solutions