System Evolution

Lesson SE1: Changes and upgrades to COTS products pose a new challenge for your system.

COTS products will experience changes and upgrades at a regular pace that exceeds the pace normally found with custom-developed software. This volatility imposes new requirements on your program management and on other aspects of the system development and maintenance.

Lesson SE2: COTS product modification and customization make system evolution more difficult.

It is very dangerous to modify a COTS product, even with the assistance of the product's vendor. It is even a liability to make extensive use of customization features provided by the vendor.