Applying Configuration Management Techniques to Component-Based Systems

Building software systems with reusable components brings many advantages.If the reuse concept is utilized on several levels of a system development, thedevelopment becomes more efficient, the reliability of the products isenhanced, and the maintenance requirement is significantly reduced. Thelevels of reuse are spread out from the reuse of source code and commonlibraries, through the reuse of large business components, up to the reuse ofthe standard products in the configuration of large systems. Designing,developing and maintaining components for reuse is, however, a very complexprocess which places high requirements not only for the componentfunctionality and flexibility, but also for the development organization. In thispaper, we discuss the different levels of component reuse, and certain aspectsof component development. As an illustration of reuse issues, we present asuccessful implementation of a component-based system, which is widely usedfor industrial process control.