But the promise of COTS products is too often not realized in practice. Many organizations find that COTS-based systems are difficult and costly to integrate, support, and maintain.

Organizations tend either to assume that COTS products can simply be glued together or to fall back on the traditional development skills and processes with which they are familiar—skills and processes that are ineffective in the development of a COTS-based system.

COTS Usage Risk EvaluationSM (CURESM) Version 2.0 Released
In any acquisition that will include extensive use of COTS products, several problems emerge. For example, the requirements process must become more flexible, yielding to the realities of commercial products, such as the inability to control when products are released, the features they include, and their ability to interface with other products. Such problems contribute to a program manager’s loss of control and create added risk.

To help manage these risks, the SEI developed the COTS Usage Risk Evaluation (CURE). This two-day assessment involves site visits by SEI personnel to the program office and contractor for COTS-based acquisitions. Structured question-and-answer sessions are used to uncover potential risks in the acquisition. Risks are identified, and strategies for mitigating those risks are provided in a final briefing.

In FY2002, a major release of the CURE method (Version 2) was completed and used for four program evaluations. At the January 2002 DoD Software Collaborators Workshop, Col David Chaffee, speaking from his experience with two CUREs at the Electronics Systems Center (ESC), had high praise, stating, “CUREs are painless, quick, and productive.”

Evolutionary Process for Integrating COTS-Based SystemsSM (EPICSM) Documented
For program managers and practitioners engaged in projects using commercial products, the Evolutionary Process for Integrating COTS-Based Systems (EPIC) offers a comprehensive framework to follow. EPIC comprises a set of iterative activities and processes to build, field, and support a solution based on commercial products. EPIC was documented in two technical reports: an overview for those who want to understand EPIC principles and structure, and a detailed description of the goals, activities, guidelines, and artifacts across the life cycle for COTS-based projects.

SEI Helps Identify Contractor Strengths, Weaknesses
The SEI provided technical support directly to the manager of the Command and Control System Consolidation (CCS-C) program during proposal evaluation, helping to identify strengths and weaknesses of potential contractors. Support continued with reviews of the selected contractor’s software development plan, detailed suggestions for improvement, and an offering of the SEI’s COTS-Based Systems for Program Managers course. Lt Col Stephen D. Hargis, CCS-C Program Manager, wrote: “Bottom line is SEI has been a tremendous help to my program, and I look forward to continued support.”

First International Conference on COTS-Based Software
Systems Held
The first International Conference on COTS-Based Software Systems (ICCBSS), held in Orlando, FL, in February 2002, served to stimulate formation of a worldwide COTS-based systems community and generate widespread technical interest and participation. The conference was sponsored by the SEI, the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), and the University of Southern California Center for Software Engineering (USC-CSE). More than 175 people from four continents attended the conference, where 23 papers were presented. ICCBSS 2003 was held in February 2003 in Ottawa, Canada. ICCBSS 2004 will be held Feb. 2-4, 2004, in Los Angeles.

The purpose of the SEI’s work in COTS-based systems is to overcome the difficulties of using, and misconceptions about, COTS products by ensuring that best engineering and management practices are employed when systems are built from commercial products and components. The SEI focuses on

>	processes needed by acquirers and developers in the management, creation, and sustainment of systems constructed from COTS products
>	engineering techniques for designing, evolving, and sustaining COTS-based systems
>	evaluation techniques for assessing COTS-based program risks and for determining the suitability of COTS products and the appropriateness of COTS-based system designs
>	the interconnection of the acquisition issues, business practices, and technical demands of engineering and evolving COTS-based systems