Towards providing decision support for COTS selection

The evolution of software engineering has led to component-based software development, which in turn has engendered tremendous interest in the development of plug-and-play reusable software, leading to the concept of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software components. The use of COTS is increasingly becoming commonplace. This is mainly due to shrinking budgets, accelerating rates of COTS enhancement, development time and effort constraints, and expanding system requirements. However, the process of selecting COTS products is characterized by a multiplicity of challenges, which should be addressed in order to harness the benefits of COTS-based software development. In this paper we preset a model that splits the COTS selection process into layers; basing on the (intra-layer) activities which affect the choice of a decision support to address a particular challenge. Moreover, we evaluate the COTS selection methods in the reviewed literature according to how they address the challenges. Finally we present the functionalities of an ideal decision support system (DSS) for COTS selection, as well as the techniques for achieving the functionalities