ABSTRACT
Many of the most important architectural decisions typically revolve around how to decompose the system or subsystem being architected into lower-level architectural elements. While some of these lower-level architectural elements will probably have to be developed from scratch, several of them should probably be reused from various sources:
Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components from product and component vendors N Government-off-the-shelf (GOTS) components from civilian governmental agencies N Military-off-the-shelf (MOTS) components from military acquisition agencies N Reusable components from the development organization’s: N
Reuse repositories or inventory − Legacy systems − Enterprise or product line reference architecture −
Open-source software components from open-source organizational repositories N Freeware software components from freeware sources N
ese potentially reusable components can be:
Reusable at the system or subsystem level N Consumable materials or products, data, equipment, facilities, firmware, hardware, manual N procedures, or software components
Services and service infrastructures N Small-scale components, general components such as the operating system (OS), middle-N ware, and common hardware Domain-specific components N
is task is a reusable MFESA method component and as such is intended to be tailorable to meet the specific needs of the endeavor. erefore, it is expected that at least some of the task’s objectives, preconditions, inputs, steps, postconditions, work products, guidelines, and pitfalls will be tailored during the creation of the endeavor-specific system architecture engineering method. Tailoring of a method component includes adding missing content, modifying existing content, or removing existing content that is inappropriate, unnecessary, or not cost-effective to perform.
