Replaceability : An NFR Approach

Building software systems from components instead of from scratch is a trend in software industry world. Software replaceability gains growing interest recently since the replaceable, standard components in the marketplace is claimed as one of the goals and benefits of components. Treating software components as fully replaceable units will help CBS (Component Based System) development and evolvement dramatically. However, the market place for replaceable components is still not at sight due to many reasons. Unlike hardware system, software replaceability is a more complicate, flexible and broad concept besides standardization. In this paper, we will give a comprehensive definition of replaceability, use NFR (non-functional requirement) framework to analyze software replaceability, and illustrate the NFR approach using a BOM (Bill of Materials) management system.