Software Engineering Institute

Because of their affordability and availability, reusable software components have long been a tantalizing IT investment. However, the risks associated with uncertainties about technical attributes and lack of protection against undesirable behaviors often deters their adoption. Certification and insurance are potential approaches to managing these risks. Probabilistic certification and insurance base their predictions and products on similar kinds of data; this offers the prospect of consistency (by using the same data for both) and cost-effectiveness (by reusing the data). The combined benefits of the two methods in the form of risk reduction and lowering of variance may make software reuse investments more attractive to risk-averse companies.