Environment for Managing Software Maintenance Projects

Abstract

A Software Engineering Environment (SEE) is quite useful in order to manage the complexity of SM projects, since it can provide the needed services. Of the different aspects to highlight in these environments, in this chapter we put our main attention on those that are more directly related to the goal of helping in the management of SM complexity: to approach the SMP from a wide perspective of business processes to integrate technological and management aspects; to define a Process-centered Software Engineering Environment (PSEE); and to use a multilevel conceptual architecture based on standards like MOF (Meta-Object Facility). The MANTIS proposal of integral environment for the management of SM projects is also presented, and the main components of this environment are commented: conceptual tools (multilevel architecture, ontologies, software processes models and metamodels); methodological tools (methodology, and interfaces with organizational and managerial processes) and technical tools (horizontal and vertical software tools, repository, and interaction with process enactment software tools).