Research On Software Configuration Management Towards Virtual Software Corporations

A Virtual Software Corporation (VSC) is a coalition of many software companies and it is a distributed, dynamic and teamwork environment. In such an environment, all members cooperate with each other to reach a common goal. It is one of the current trends in software development. Software development in a virtual environment needs effective software process management and presents particular challenges to Software Configuration Management (SCM).The purpose of this article is to realize effective SCM in VSC. In the context of VSC, we analyze the requirements of SCM toward VSC and expand SCM basic process definitions. We propose a software configuration model based on global graph and realize the SCM architecture by using Web Service.At first, an introduction of the research background is given, and then the study objectives of this thesis are presented.Secondly, we analyze the requirements of SCM and Software Configuration Model toward VSC. An introduction of the concepts of SCM and SCM basic process definitions is given. We analyze the attributes and characters of VSC and SCM challenges toward VSC. Then we process SCM requirements analysis in the context of VSC. We propose expanded SCM process definitions and summarize the requirements of Software Configuration Model.In the 3rd chapter, we propose a Software Configuration Model based on global graph and it is toward VSC. We discuss the features of the model from 4 aspects and they are model definitions, model restrictions, version management and active operations. We discuss the deploy modes of the model in VSC at the end of the chapter.Finally, we realize the SCM architecture by using Web Service. Then we analyze the shortcomings of the main distributed technique (CORBA, DCOM, Java RMI, etc.) and select Web Service as the basic architecture of our system. Then, an introduction of Web Service is given, including its architecture, protocol organization and related criterions. At last, we discuss our Web Service-based SCM system. This system is divided into 2 levels and they are Software Configuration Level and Web Service Encapsulation Level. Their functions and working mechanism are introduced at the end of the 4th chapter.