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8.4.3 COTS: What You Get (In Addition to the Potential Development Savings)
Author(s) -
Long James E.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.2000.tb00427.x
Subject(s) - component (thermodynamics) , commercial off the shelf , schedule , process (computing) , computer science , surprise , reliability engineering , systems engineering , engineering , embedded system , operating system , software , psychology , social psychology , physics , thermodynamics
It comes as no surprise that incorporating an existing component into a system means you save in having to develop the component yourself—savings in schedule and development costs. What often is surprising is the impact that incorporating an existing component has on the system engineering process. This paper reviews the system engineering process and shows where the incorporation of COTS (Commercial‐off‐the‐shelf) and GOTS (Government‐off‐the‐shelf) fits into the process. It discusses the savings you get from a COTS component as well as the cost of these savings. Also described are the issues of interfaces and life cycle maintenance and modification. Once you incorporate a COTS component, how do you handle the upgrades to the COTS? Before jumping in to take advantage of COTS products, take time to consider whether the system and design process are robust enough to handle the additional constraints.