IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Vol.

8, Issue 1, January 2011 182

ISSN (Online): 1694-0814
www.IJCSI.org

A Paper Presentation on
Software Development Automation by Computer Aided Software
Engineering (CASE)

Nishant Dubey

School of Computer and Electronics, IPS Academy

Indore, MP, PIN 452012, India

integrated system development tools which provides an

Abstract automated environment in which to design and implement system
projects. CASE technology enables system developers to
Now a day, system developers are faced to produce complex, improve both quality and efficiency, resulting in a net
high quality software to support the demand for new and revised improvement in maintenance and development productivity.
computer applications. This challenge is complicated by strict
resource constraints, forcing management to deploy new The objectives of this paper are to provide the reader with
technologies, methods and procedures to manage this sufficient information about CASE technology to develop an
increasingly complex environment. Often the methods, evaluation and implementation strategy for utilizing CASE to
procedures and technologies are not integrated. Therefore, they improve systems development productivity.
achieve less than desired improvements in productivity, or force
management to make tradeoff decisions between software quality
and developer efficiency. Thus the production lines have to be
developed faster, too. A very important role in this development 2. Computer Aided Software Engineering
is Software Engineering because many production processes are
'computer aided', so software has to be designed for this
production system. It seems very important to do the software
engineering right and fast. Computer
Software Aided
Keywords: CASE, Software Engineering, Tools, Process,
Engineering

1. Introduction

Software Engineering is still a relatively new area of engineering. Foundation

Indeed the phrase itself gained widespread use after a 1968 (Formalization
NATO-sponsored conference. As the name suggests, Software Methods ) TOOLS
Engineering deals with the exposing of the process of designing,
creating and maintaining software. It is perhaps useful to bear in
mind that a structured approach to a solution is in no way a
Complex methods
barrier to creativity. Indeed, much modern architecture, although become easy to use
bound by rigid guidelines and specifications can be truly Fig 1 CASE
breathtaking. This term is used for a new generation of tools that applies
engineering principles to the development and analysis of
Today everything has to go faster. Because of the increasing software specifications. Simply, computers develop software for
speed of changing market-demands new products replace old other computers in a fast way by using specific tools. When
ones much earlier than before, so the development of new implanted in a concurrent engineering environment, this process
products has to go faster. Thus the production lines have to be is taking place while some parts of the developed software are
developed faster, too In the past, software systems were build running already. It's a sort of on-line software engineering. There
using traditional development techniques, which relied on hand- are a lot of problems with these kinds of systems because they
coding applications. are very complex, not easily maintainable and fragile.
Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) helps system The tools developed right now are evolutional products out of
developers meet their challenge by providing a new generation of earlier tools. The first tools, developed in the mid '70s, were
IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Vol. 8, Issue 1, January 2011 183
ISSN (Online): 1694-0814
www.IJCSI.org

mainly introduced to automate the production and to capture project specific metrics which provide the overall
maintenance structured diagrams. When this automation covers indication of productivity or quality.
the complete life-cycle process, it is called Integrated Computer viii. Analysis and Design Tools – These tools enable to
Aided Software Engineering (I-CASE). When only one specific create the models of system to be made. This model has a
part of the life-cycle process is covered we called just- Computer representation of data, function and behavior and
Aided Software Engineering (CASE). characterization of data architectural, component-level
and design interface.
Recently, CASE tools have entered a third phase: the ix. Project Management Tool – On a continuing basis the
introduction of new methodologies based on capabilities of I- project plan and schedule must be tracked and monitored.
CASE tools. These new methodologies utilize Rapid Prototyping These tools are extension for project planning tools.
techniques to develop applications faster, at lower cost and x. Risk Analysis Tools – These tools enable a manager to
higher quality. By using Rapid Prototyping a prototype can be make a risk table by providing detailed guidance in the
made fast, so the developed system can be tested more often in risk identification and risk analysis.
between the development-phases because it doesn't cost much
xi. Documentation Tools – These tools provide an
time to create a prototype. Mistakes can be detected and
important opportunity to improve productivity. Document
corrected earlier this way. The earlier this can be done, the better
production tools support every aspect of software
because correcting these mistakes gets harder and more
engineering and represent a substantial leverage
expensive when the system is developed further. So a lot of time
opportunity for all developers.
and money can be saved using Rapid Prototyping.
xii. Prototyping Tools – Prototyping tools enables the
As said above, a new set of tools is necessary. These tools should creating of data design, coupled with both screen and
automate each phase of the life-cycle process and tie the report layouts.
application development more closely to the strategic operations xiii. Quality Assurance Tools – CASE tools majority claims
of the business. A lot of different tools have been developed over on majority claim on quality assurance to focus are the
the years and are being developed right now. There are so many metrics tools for auditing source code to determine
tools, that we could easily get confused. To survey all these compliance with language standard. For building the
CASE tools we divide them in the following categories: quality of software other tools extract technical metrics in
an effort to the project.
i. Business Process Engineering Tools – The primary xiv. Programming Tools – These tools encompass the
objectives of these tools is to represent business data compilers, editors and debuggers to support most
objects, their relationships and how these data objects conventional programming languages. In this category
flow between different business areas within a company. OOP environment, application generators and database
ii. Requirement Tracing Tools – The objective of these query language resides.
tools is to provide a systematic approach to the isolation xv. Interface Design & Development Tools – These tools
of requirements that begins with the proposal or are software component tool kit which contained menus,
specification of customer’s request. The typical buttons, window, icon, device drivers etc. These tool kits
requirement of these tools includes human interactive text replaced by prototyping tools.
evaluation with the database management system which xvi. System Software Tools – CASE is workstation
stores and categorize every system need that is parse from technology and high quality network system software,
the original specification. distributed component support, bulletin board, email,
iii. Software Configuration Management Tools – it is object management services and other capabilities of
lies in the kernel of every CASE environment. These communication.
tools help in identification, version control, change xvii. Database Management Tools – These tools are
control, auditing and status accounting. include on the emphasis of configuration object from
iv. Process Modeling and Management Tools – Process RDBMS to Object Oriented DBMS for CASE.
Modeling Tools represent the key elements of a process xviii. Integration and Testing Tools – in this the following
such that it can be better understood. Process testing tools are categorized
management tools provide the links to other tools for a. Data Acquisition – These acquire the data that is to be
providing support defining process activities. used during testing.
v. PRO/SIM Tools – Prototyping and Simulation tools b. Statement Management – These analyze the source code
provide the software engineer with the ability for without executing the test cases.
predicting the behavior of a real time system prior to the c. Dynamic Measurement – These analyze the source code
time that it is made, and these tools enable for developing during execution.
mock ups of real time systems. d. Simulation – These simulate the function of hardware or
vi. Project Planning Tools – These tools focus on other externals.
Software Project Effort and Cost Estimation and Project e. Text Management – These help in the planning
Scheduling. development and the control of testing.
vii. Matrix and Management Tools – Software metrics f. Cross Functional Tools – These cross the bounds of the
improve the ability of manager to control and coordinate preceding categories.
the process of software engineering. Management tools
IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Vol. 8, Issue 1, January 2011 184
ISSN (Online): 1694-0814
www.IJCSI.org

xix. Web Development Tool – These tools help in the communicate with one another, to create a project database and
generation of text, graphics forms, scripts, applets and to exhibit the same look and feel to the software engineer (end
other elements of a webpage. user).
xx. Client Server Testing Tools – The client/server
environment demands the testing tools that exercise the
graphical user interface and the network communication 4. Conclusion
requirements for client and server.
xxi. Test management Tools – These tools are used to CASE technology is now available for most routine activities in
control and coordinate software testing. These manage the software process. This has led to some improvements in
and coordinate regression testing, platform comparison software quality and productivity although these have been less
and conduct the batch testing of programs with than predicted by early advocates of CASE.
human/computer interfaces interactively. Various companies offer CASE software capable of supporting
xxii. Reengineering Tools – In these tools for legacy some or all of these activities. While many CASE systems
software address a set of maintenance activities that provide special support for object-oriented programming, the
absorb significance percentage of all software related term CASE can apply to any type of software development
effort. environment.
xxiii. Static Analysis Tool – Static testing tools help in
deriving test cases. In this code based testing tools takes
source code and perform number of analyses that results
in test case generation. Specialized testing language 5. References
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Environment Architecture

FIG 2 CASE BUILDING BLOCKS

Each building block forms a foundation for the next, with tools
sitting at the top of the heap. The environment architecture
composed of hardware platform and operating system lays the
ground work for the CASE. The operating system includes the
networking software, database management and object
management services. Portability services provide a bridge
between CASE tools and their integration framework and the
environment architecture. Integration framework is a collection
of specialized programs that enables individual CASE tools to