A Technical History of the SEI

The SEI Contribution
When the SEI started investigating COTS-based systems, there was no other resource to which
the federal government—most particularly, the DoD—could turn for guidance on achieving success
with the use of COTS products. The SEI’s influence extended beyond the Army, Navy, and
Air Force, although courses were taught to all three. Other government organizations include the
GAO, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Commerce.
The SEI developed a COTS-based systems body of knowledge based on broad experience.
Through its CBS work, the SEI developed basic principles, techniques, and tools. SEI experts
published guidance, presented tutorials at conferences, and provided training. It related CBS work
to the CMMI, the Earned Value Method (EVM), Rational’s RUP, and the spiral development
method defined by Boehm. It used the International Standards Organization standard for software
product evaluations [ISO/IEC 1998] as a starting place for developing the PECA process. The SEI
also partnered with two other organizations to plan and lead the International Conference on
COTS-Based Software Systems, held 2002-2008 (later renamed the International Conference on
Component-Based Software Systems). The SEI’s partners were the National Research Council,
Canada (Ottawa, Canada) and the European Software Institute (Bilbao, Spain). This conference
series attracted CBS researchers and practitioners from around the world and yielded a significant
contribution to the CBS literature.
The value of this SEI work to the community is illustrated by the decision of Rational (now IBM)
to use EPIC as the basis for a COTS plug-in for its tool suite called the RUP Plug-In for COTS
Package Delivery [IBM 2010]. Also, Mälardalen University in Sweden held an annual workshop
on component-based software engineering, and the SEI was involved in active working groups
that developed from those workshops. The university created an ongoing research group based on
interactions of the SEI with Professor Ivica Crnkovic, author of Building Reliable Component-
Based Software Systems [Crnkovic 2002]. Finally, SEI work continues to be cited in journals and
papers; see, for example, articles by Kusomo and by VanLeer [Kusomo 2012, VanLeer 2013].
The COTS-based systems work is an excellent example of the SEI’s method of applied research,
taking what is known about a subject, improving and enhancing it through research, and then
packaging that in forms that meet the needs of government and industry customers.
References
[Albert 2002a] Albert, Cecilia & Brownsword, Lisa. Evolutionary Process for Integrating COTS-
Based Systems (EPIC): An Overview (CMU/SEI-2002-TR-009). Software Engineering Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University, 2002. http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?AssetID=6093
[Albert 2002b] Albert, Cecilia; Brownsword, Lisa; Bentley, David; Bono, Thomas; Morris, Edwin;
& Pruitt, Deborah. Evolutionary Process for Integrating COTS-Based Systems (EPIC) Building,
Fielding, and Supporting Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) Based Solutions (CMU/SEI-
2002-TR-005). Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 2002. http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?AssetID=6053
[Boehm 1986] Boehm B. “A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement.” ACM
SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes 11, 4 (August 1986):14-24.
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