Software Engineering Institute

This report is the final volume in a three-volume series on component-based software engineering. Volumes I and II identified market conditions and technical concepts of component-based software technology, respectively. Volume III (this report) focuses on how component technology can be extended to achieve predictable assembly from certifiable components (PACC). An assembly of software components is predictable if its runtime behavior can be predicted from the properties of its components and their patterns of interactions. A component is certifiable if its (predictive) properties can be objectively measured or otherwise verified by independent third parties. This report identifies the key technical concepts of PACC, with an emphasis on the theory of prediction-enabled component technology (PECT).