A Re-engineering approach for software systems complying with the utilisation of ubiquitous computing technologies.

The evident progression of ubiquitous technologies has put forward the introduction of new features which software systems can sustain. Several of the ubiquitous technologies available today are regarded as fundamental elements of many software applications in various domains. The utilisation of ubiquitous technologies has an apparent impact on business processes that can grant organisations a competitive advantage and improve their productivity. The change in the business processes in such organisations typically leads to a change in the underlying software systems. In addressing the need for change in the underlying software systems, this research is focused on establishing a general framework and methodology to facilitate the reengineering of software systems in order to allow the incorporation of new features which are introduced by the employment of ubiquitous technologies. Although this thesis aims to be general and not limited to a specific programming language or software development approach, the focus is on Object-Oriented software. The reengineering framework follows a systematic step-based approach, with greater focus on the reverse engineering aspect. The four stages of the framework are: program understanding, additional-requirement engineering, integration, and finally the testing and operation stage. In its first stage, the proposed reengineering framework regards the source code as the starting point to understand the system using a static-analysis based method. The second stage is concerned with the elicitation of the user functional requirements resulting from the introduction of ubiquitous technologies. In the third stage, the goal is to integrate the system’s components and hardware handlers using a developed integration algorithm and available integration techniques. In the fourth and final stage, which is discussed in a general manner only in this thesis, the reengineered system is tested and put in the operation phase. The proposed approach is demonstrated using a case study in Java to show that the proposed approach is feasible and promising in its domain. Conclusions are drawn based on analysis and further research directions are discussed at the end of the study