Software Engineering Institute

The approach that one chooses to evolve software-intensive systems depends on the organization, the system, and the technology. We believe that significant progress in system architecture, system understanding, object technology, and net-centric computing make it possible to economically evolve software systems to a state in which they exhibit greater functionality and maintainability. In particular, interface technology, wrapping technology, and network technology are opening many opportunities to leverage existing software assets instead of scrapping them and starting over. But these promising technologies cannot be applied in a vacuum or without management understanding and control. There must be a framework in which to motivate the organization to understand its business opportunities, its application systems, and its road to an improved target system. This report outlines a comprehensive system evolution approach that incorporates an enterprise framework for the application of the promising technologies in the context of legacy systems.