TY - JOUR
T1 - Towards a taxonomy of technical debt for COTS-intensive cyber physical systems
AU - Yang, Ye
AU - Michel, Ronald
AU - Wade, Jon
AU - Verma, Dinesh
AU - Törngren, Martin
AU - Alelyani, Turki
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Author(s).
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Most existing studies addressing COTS obsolescence issues in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) have strong emphasis on the sustainment phases. We have identified a gap on methods, processes, and tools for effective COTS risk analysis in the early systems acquisition phases. To fill the gap, this study proposes a taxonomy of COTS-related technical debt in order to support early identification, communication, and assessment of obsolescence risks in CPS system engineering life cycles. The taxonomy contributes to the identification of seven key types of COTS technical debt according to systematic signs discoverable during early COTS activities, which may contribute to obsolescence in later phases. These seven types of COTS technical debt include COTS functionality mismatch, performance mismatch, interoperability difficulty, versioning frequency, documentation and support readiness, and limitation on system evolution. It is expected that such notions will help to increase the efficiency of COTS-based CPS development, readiness, and sustainment, through more informed COTS decision-making to avoid expensive and unaffordable obsolescence issues in the envisioned systems sustainment phases.
AB - Most existing studies addressing COTS obsolescence issues in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) have strong emphasis on the sustainment phases. We have identified a gap on methods, processes, and tools for effective COTS risk analysis in the early systems acquisition phases. To fill the gap, this study proposes a taxonomy of COTS-related technical debt in order to support early identification, communication, and assessment of obsolescence risks in CPS system engineering life cycles. The taxonomy contributes to the identification of seven key types of COTS technical debt according to systematic signs discoverable during early COTS activities, which may contribute to obsolescence in later phases. These seven types of COTS technical debt include COTS functionality mismatch, performance mismatch, interoperability difficulty, versioning frequency, documentation and support readiness, and limitation on system evolution. It is expected that such notions will help to increase the efficiency of COTS-based CPS development, readiness, and sustainment, through more informed COTS decision-making to avoid expensive and unaffordable obsolescence issues in the envisioned systems sustainment phases.
KW - acquisition
KW - commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)
KW - cyber physical system
KW - metrics
KW - obsolescence
KW - technical debt
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074996175&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1016/j.procs.2019.05.061
DO - 10.1016/j.procs.2019.05.061
M3 - Conference article
AN - SCOPUS:85074996175
SN - 1877-0509
VL - 153
SP - 108
EP - 117
JO - Procedia Computer Science
JF - Procedia Computer Science
T2 - 17th Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research, CSER 2019
Y2 - 3 April 2018 through 4 April 2018
ER -