A Technical History of the SEI

CASE Environments
The Challenge: Making Smart Decision on Tools and Environments
In the late 1980s, a number of computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools 51 had become
available with claims about how they could provide benefits for developing better software. Expectations
were high for these CASE tools, particularly those that supported modeling of software,
but also for new generations of configuration management/version control, code analysis,
testing, and other tools. DoD program managers expressed a strong need for help in making decisions
on the competing claims of tool vendors. 52
A Solution: CASE Tool Integration
The SEI responded to the DoD need in 1989 by analyzing how to best help DoD organizations
make better decisions on the selection, adoption, and integration of CASE tools. In addition, the
SEI convened a series of workshops to better understand the requirements of DoD managers, as
well as to get the perspectives of the research community and tool-vendor community [Huff
1992a, 1992b].
Although there had initially been sentiment from some DoD programs to develop a rating scale
for the various tools, the results of the workshops and the SEI team’s ongoing analysis indicated
that this approach was infeasible. It would be difficult to procure the many tools entering the marketplace,
construct the necessary computing environment, install the tools, and train staff in their
use. In addition, because the CASE tools evolve over time, information provided for one tool version
could be invalidated by the next version.
As a result, the SEI addressed DoD needs by focusing initially on strategies for adopting and integrating
a set of tools, and it developed a widely used Guide to CASE Adoption [Smith 1992]. This
guide emphasized the need for making an informed decision by identifying a need selection criteria,
performing trial implementations, and defining an adoption strategy. The SEI addressed issues
of cost, performance, process support, maintenance, data management, tool integration, and standardization
[Zarrella 1991]. In a series of case studies, the SEI found that the state of the practice of
CASE tool use was modest compared to the marketing claims [Rader 1993]. However, these studies
documented the ways in which organizations overcame the shortcomings of tools current at
that time through commitment, ingenuity, and attention to end-user needs.
The approach to tool integration evolved. The commercial CASE market had initially focused on
vendor-centric individual tools, with a predominant emphasis on analysis and design tools. Many
organizations were making improvements to their software engineering practices by incorporating
various types of CASE tools, but the tools typically did not work together. As a result, manual intervention
was often used to move data between tools, but this solution was both impractical and,
in some cases, nearly impossible because of the divergent data models and interaction strategies
of the individual tools. Some vendors positioned their tool as an integration platform, thereby
locking users into the specific tool, associated development processes, and related vendors. (There
51 Examples were CADRE Teamwork and Software Through Pictures.
52 The SEI Senior Technical Review Committee expressed this as one of the top priorities from the
perspective of DoD programs.
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