e-SEM
 Life cycle    | Phase-neutral themes    | Initiation    | Definition    | Design/Implementation    | Operations    | Termination


 


   

e-SEM - Index

This section of e-SEM offers you links to descriptions of key terms and definitions frequently inquired for. Also use the search function provided in the e-SEM web!

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Software Engineering Terms 
offers a comprehensive glossary of SW Engineering Terms ( by CSDP)
e-SEM search
(free text search in the e-SEM web)

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API
Abbreviation for "Application Programmer's Interface" or "Application Programming Interface"
 
Architecture
Phase-neutral theme in e-SEM. The solution's architecture has to be planned as early as possible, as it governs key characteristics and features (such as performance, scalability).
 
Architecture
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Back to back contract
A contract between a contractor and subcontractors where the subcontractors accept the same contract conditions as prevailing between the client and the contractor. This occurs, for example, in PSE-SBS cooperations.
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Tenders/contracts: Back to back agreements
Build
Executable development version of a software. "Intermediary releases" are specific builds released for inspection/validation; "releases" are specific builds released for operations.
Life cycle: Iterative development
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CCB
Abbreviation for "Change Control Board", an important institution to ensure orderly change management.
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Change management
CDA
Abbreviation for "Content Delivery Application"; the part of web solutions that prepares the content for being displayed on a web browser. With this type of application, caching is a particularly important issue in order to ensure best performance in displaying the content.
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Chestra
Comprehensive methodology framework developed by SBS, accessible on the intranet, especially well suited for "consulting-heavy" projects. Chestra can easily be combined with SEM (stdSEM, e-SEM), especially in the early phases of a project (drawing up a tender, proposal management).
 
e-SEM and comparable methods
Claim management
Phase-neutral theme in e-SEM. Important in any project where there is room for interpretation regarding requirements and commissioning.
 
Claim management
CMS
Abbreviation for "Content Management System"; as a rule, these are web-based software solutions designed for managing the content of web sites.
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Configuration management
Phase-neutral theme in e-SEM. Particularly important with iterative development (it must always be possible to fall back on an earlier version).
 
Configuration management
Consortium
A type of cooperation becoming more and more frequent in e-projects. The designing and wording of consortium agreements is a complex matter and should be done with the help of SAGÖ Steuern und Recht (STR - Tax and Law department), where necessary. 
 
Tenders/contracts: Consortium agreements
CORBA
Common Object Request Broker Architecture. A language-independent, distributed object model specified by the Object Management Group (OMG).
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Costing
Phase-neutral theme in e-SEM. 
 
Effort estimation/project costing
COTS
"Commercial Off-The-Shelf" software, that is software you can buy "across the counter", so to speak. Frequently, the combining and adaptation of several COTS products will give rise to considerable problems.
The term OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) refers to a similar concept (integration of orginal components supplied by another manufacturer), but also includes hardware..
 
Discussion of the pros and cons of COTS
Customer workshops
Important means of identifying, systemizing and bundling of requirements. 
Life cycle: Handling of requirements
Tenders/contracts: Customer workshops
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Definition
SEM phase where the requirements the solution to be produced has to meet are defined. .
 
Definition phase
Design/Implementation
e-SEM phase where the solution is produced in iterative cycles. This phase corresponds to the stdSEM Prototyping phase.
 

Life cycle: Design and Implementation
Design/Implementation phase
Design workshop
Workshop dedicated to the design of the software user interface. End users, usability experts, technicians and client discuss prepared design prototypes and typical use scenarios..
Design workshops
Sample results
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Effort estimation
Phase-neutral theme in e-SEM. Effort estimation is a particularly sensitive issue in e-projects as there will frequently be relatively little experience available (technology, domain) and the requirements tend to be unstable at the time the tender is made.
 
Effort estimation/project costing
Effort estimation meeting
An important method for effort estimation in e-projects (most frequently taking the form of an expert estimation).
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Effort estimation/project costing: Methods
EJB
Enterprise Java Beans. Technology within the framework of J2EE where the runtime environment supports object properties such as security, concurrency, life cycle management, transaction and deployment. After a lot of initial enthusiasm, it has turned out now that EJBs should be used only sparingly as they use up a lot of resources.
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e-projects
Summary term for projects that share characteristics that typically occur in an e-business environment (but not only there).
 
Introduction: Goals of e-SEM
Definition of term
eXtreme programming (XP)
New paradigm for efficient programming in close cooperation with the customer. While some XP practices are highly recommendable for use in PSE projects, as an overall model, XP is likely to work only in exceptional cases in the PSE environment.
Positioning of e-SEM versus XP
Description of XP practices
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Function point analysis
Procedure used to determine the scope of functions of a software package from the user's point of view. Conducting a function point analysis gives you a basis for estimating development effort on the one hand, and also constitutes an efficient review of the requirements (software requirements specification) on the other hand. In e-projects, a function point analysis should always go hand in hand with an effort estimation meeting. 
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Effort estimation/project costing: Methods
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HTTP
Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. Communication protocol governing the way a client and a server "talk" to one another. The client is in most cases a web browser, the server a web server.
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Initiation
SEM phase that also has to be gone through in iterative-incremental development.
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Life cycle: Project initiation and termination
Initiation phase
Incremental development
Step-by-step development with small-scale upgrades in functionality. Its major advantage is the fact the a first (small-scale) release can be quickly put into operation
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Life cycle: Incremental development
Iterative development
Development based on repetitive loops. Its major advantages are frequent integration and testing, which provides for presentable intermediary releases and makes any requested changes relatively easy to perform.
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Life cycle: Iterative development
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Java(TM) 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE Platform)
J2EE provides an environment for the development and distribution of enterprise applications. The J2EE platform consists of complementary services, application programming interfaces (APIs) and protocols supporting the development of n-tier web-based applications.
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JDBC
Java(TM) Database Connectivity.
An industry standard for database-independent mutual access between the JAVA platform (J2EE) and a broad range of diverse relational database systems offering drivers for JDBC. The JDBC interface defines an SQL-based API.
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Letter of Intent
A declaration of intent between client and contractor prior to a contract; is not legally binding in most cases.
 
PSE tender templates
Life cycle
e-SEM's life cycle approach is based on the principles of iterative-incremental development. stdSEM also provides other life cycle approaches (e.g. the classical waterfall model). 
Life cycle
Life cycle approach
e-SEM's life cycle approach is based on the principles of iterative-incremental development. stdSEM also provides other life cycle approaches (e.g. the classical waterfall model). 
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Life cycle
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Middleware
Middleware is a type of software that links two different applications (e.g. web server and databases); typically, middleware programs provide messaging services to ensure communication between different applications.
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.NET
New Microsoft platform and strategy. Is geared primarily to services provided on the Internet (web services & SOAP) and multi-platform support (CLR, Common Language Runtime). .NET is a second serious platform for the development of web-based distributed applications, offering an alternative to J2EE.
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Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA)
Commitment to treat certain items of information as confidential, to use them only for specific purposes and/or to not disclose them.
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Tenders/contracts: Other contract documents
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Operations
SEM phase where the solution is put into operation. Whether this phase is conducted at all and if so, to which extent, depends on whether or not the client has commissioned it.
 

Operations phase
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POC
Abbreviation for "Proof Of Concept": A sort of pre-project with the aim to get a clear picture of goals, tasks, scope of tasks, feasibility, etc.
 
Tenders/contracts: Proof of concept
Product quality
Frequently, customers/clients consider non-functional quality criteria (such as performance, usability, ...) as a matter of course; therefore, it is necessary to pay particular attention to these characteristics.
 
Quality assurance: Product quality assurance
Products supplied by others
Products and services supplied by others (tools, content, third-party components to be integrated) are often "time-critical", so they need especially good planning and monitoring in e-projects.
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Quality assurance: Customer supplied products
Project costing
Is based on effort estimation, converts estimation into HR cost, taking account of additional costs, risk surcharges, etc. The total result of these calculations then serves as the basis for pricing (in fixed-price business). 
 
Effort estimation/project costing
Project standards
Good project standards enable developers to work productively in a team and make cooperation with the customer easier
 
Quality assurance: Project standards
Proposal management
Part of the SBS methodology framework Chestra; methodology for drawing up successful tenders or proposals, which is absolutely recommendable in the case of comprehensive tenders.
Tenders/contracts: Chestra proposal management
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Quality assurance
Phase-neutral theme in e-SEM. 
 
Quality assurance
QA manager
Person in charge of quality assurance. In e-projects, the QA manager should always be fully involved in the project so as to be able to adequately meet the responsibilities associated with this function.
Quality assurance: Responsibilities of the QA manager
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RAD
Abbreviation for "Rapid Application Development". Often used as a synonym for what we at PSE understand under prototyping, i.e. basically the e-SEM life cycle approach..
 
Life cycle
Release
A product release is a development result delivered for operations. On the one hand, the functionality of a release has to be attractive enough to warrant productive operations, but must, on the other hand, not be so large as to cause an unduly long time to market..
 
Life cycle: Incremental development
Review
Phase-neutral theme in e-SEM. This does not only refer to "classic" reviews in the narrower sense of the term, but also to coordination workshops and inspections of intermediary releases.
 
Inspections / reviews
Risk management
Phase-neutral theme in e-SEM. e-projects are more risk-prone than traditional projects, which is why risk management is all the more important.
 
Risk management
Roles
e-SEM (just like stdSEM) does not provide for a detailed definition of all the roles in the project team and their functions; the typical (tried and tested) roles in e-projects include project manager, QA manager, architect, domain expert, CM and test managers.
  
Team: Roles within the team
RUP (Rational Unified Process)
Comprehensive framework of methods developed by Rational and geared to iterative-incremental development. You can call up RUP on the Siemens intranet.
Positioning of e-SEM versus RUP
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- S -
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SOAP
The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). SOAP uses a combination of XML-based structured data (messages enveloped in XML data) and HTTP as protocol. SOAP defines a protocol for remote method calls (RPC - Remote Procedure Call) via HTTP.
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Suppliers
In e-projects, cooperation with external suppliers is a frequent feature, which needs to be adequately planned, regulated and monitored.
 
Quality assurance: Monitoring of suppliers
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Tailoring
Method tailoring means adapting a method to the concrete needs of a project. e-SEM has already been tailored for use in fast, user-interface-heavy projects with an iterative-incremental approach and can/should be further adapted to concrete project requirements where necessary.
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Quality assurance: Tailoring
Tender
Phase-neutral theme in e-SEM. As requirements tend to be rather vague in e-projects at the beginning, the wording of tenders and contracts is particularly important.
 
Tenders/contracts
Termination
SEM phase that also has to be gone through in iterative-incremental development.
 
Life cycle: Project initiation and termination
Termination phase
Time boxing
With the time boxing approach, planning provides for fixed development time and effort for defined tasks. This definition of limits forces both the client and the development team to focus on what is essential; the small chunks to be processed result in less "waste" to be disposed of, easier costing, and continuous capacity usage for the team during a given time box.
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Tenders/contracts: Typical challenges
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UDDI
Universal Description, Discovery and Integration. A directory service for web services that allows web services to be retrieved throughout the Internet.
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Usability
Phase-neutral theme in e-SEM. Particularly important in user-interface-heavy projects (such as web applications).
 
Usability
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Validation
Examining a result for its suitability for the given purpose of use. The customer coordination meetings held during development, which are an important element of e-SEM, are usually a combination of validation and verification.
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Life cycle: Validation
Verification
Examining a result for correctness (does the product behave as specified?) The customer coordination meetings held during development, which are an important element of e-SEM, are usually a combination of validation and verification.
 
Life cycle: Verification
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Web services
Web services are application or system functionalities that can be used via the web. These services are loosely coupled software systems, communicating via XML messages and enabling asynchronous access to applications (even legacy applications). Web services use the following standards: SOAP, WSDL and UDDI.
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WSDL
Web Services Description Language. A formal interface description of web services, analogous to the concept of the CORBA Interface Definition Language (IDL).
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XML
Extensible Markup Language. Markup language used to describe flexible interfaces and document structures
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