Evolutionary Process for Integrating COTS-Based Systems
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is orphaned as few or no other articles link to it. Please help introduce links in articles on related topics. (January 2008) |
 |
This page has few or no links to other articles. (Tagged since January 2008). You can improve this article by adding links to related material, within the existing text. For some link suggestions, you can try Can We Link It tool. (You can help!) |
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. (February 2008) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
Evolutionary Process for Integrating COTS-Based Systems (EPIC) is designed to support building, fielding and supporting software-intensive systems using available Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and other pre-existing components.
EPIC redefines acquisition, management, and engineering practices to more effectively leverage the COTS marketplace and other sources of pre-existing components. This is accomplished through concurrent discovery and negotiation of diverse spheres of influence: user needs and business processes, applicable technology and components, the target architecture, and programmatic constraints.
EPIC codifies these practices in a structured flow of key activities and artifacts. This alternative approach is a risk-based, disciplined, spiral-engineering approach which leverages the Rational Unified Process (RUP).
The first release of an overview of EPIC is found in the Software Engineering Institute technical report: CMU/SEI-2002-TR-009 [1].
[edit] Framework
To accommodate the continuous change induced by the COTS marketplace, EPIC applies a risk-based spiral development process. EPIC users manage the gathering of information from the marketplace and the stakeholders and refine that information through analysis and negotiation into a coherent, emerging solution that is embodied in a series of executable representations through the life of the project. Stakeholders actively participate in EPIC as key players in day-to-day negotiations that also continue through the life of the solution. This also ensures their buy-in to the emerging solution.
EPIC is more than a way to select a specific component. Use of EPIC begins with the definition of a need for a new or changed capability and a commitment to provide the resources necessary to identify, acquire, build, field, and support a solution that will deliver that capability. Use of EPIC ends only when the solution is retired or replaced with a new solution. In some instances, the solution will be transitioned to a different organization for support once it has been fielded. The major features of EPIC should also be used by the support organization to protect the investment in components.
[edit] References
Evolutionary Process for Integrating COTS-Based Systems (EPIC): An Overview[2] Ceci Albert, Lisa Brownsword
