Optimal Build-or-Buy Decision for Component Selection of Application Package Software

Application Package Software (APS) is a collection of software programs developed for the purpose of being licensed to third-party organizations. Examples of APS include accounting systems, human resources software, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. With the advancement in Information technology, Component Based Software Engineering (CBSE) has emerged for rapid assembly of flexible modular software systems. It promotes software re-use for large software systems by purchasing components in the form of commercial-off the shelf components from the vendor. If the required component is not available in the market, then it has to be developed in-house. This decision of whether to buy the component or build from the scratch is known as build-or-buy decision. Through this paper, we shall discuss a framework that will help the developer to decide whether to buy or to build software components while designing a fault-tolerant modular software system. This paper proposes optimization models for optimal component selection for a fault-tolerant modular software system under the Recovery Block Scheme (RBS).