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University of Helsinki Department of Computer Science
 

Annual report 2005

Research projects

Software engineering

Fact-based Maturity through Institutionalisation Lessons-learned and Involved Exploration of System-family Engineering - FAMILIES

Period: 6/2003-6/2005

Researchers: Antti Tevanlinna, Raine Kauppinen

Funding:

Software families are groups of software that offer similar functions and are based on similar architectures. These groups provide the possibility for large-scale recycling of software components. It is challenging to design system families, since it requires predicting and abstracting software product features that are as yet unknown. The European ITEA project FAMILIES continues the work of earlier ITEA projects hat studied the technical features of software system families and developed their basic architectures. The two main focuses of the FAMILIES project are on the beginning of the engineering process, where the system family is analysed from a business perspective, and on the end of the process, where the system family quality is ensured. The ROOSA research group at the department has participated in FAMILIES by focusing the latter aspect, developing methods and tools for testing software system families on the basis of architectures and components.

Software Evolution, Refactoring, Improvement of Operational & Usable Systems - SERIOUS

Period: 9/2005-9/2007

Researchers: Juha Gustafsson

Funding: Nokia

Many software-intensive systems are maintained and improved throughout their life cycle. In the designing phase, the desired functions and quality features are built into the software. After they have been implemented, software is often enhanced with e.g. new features. This leads to a gradual deterioration of quality, unless the evolution is factored into the engineering process. To find a durable solution to problems caused by deterioration, quality features have to be taken into consideration throughout the product life span. On the one hand, the consolidation of quality and improvement cuts back maintenance costs, and on the other hand, it extends the life span of the software. The main goal of the project is to specify software architecture quality so that it can be taken into consideration from the start of the engineering process to the end of the product’s life cycle. The focus lays especially on quality metrics for software families.