The ontological evaluation of the requirements model when shifting from a traditional to a component-based paradigm in information systems re-engineering

The ontological evaluation of the requirements model when shifting from a traditional to a component-based paradigm in information systems re-engineering

[Abstract]: The vast majority of present legacy information systems were implemented using the traditional paradigm. The traditional paradigm consists of modeling techniques used by system analysts such as System Flow Charts and Data Flow Diagrams (DFD) to capture, during the analysis phase, the activities within a system.
However, with recent developments, particularly trends towards e-Commerce applications, platform independence, reusability of pre-built components, capacity for reconfiguration and higher reliability, many organizations are realizing they will need to re-engineer their systems into new component based systems that meet these
trends given the limitations of legacy systems to adapt to these new technical requirements.

There is a high degree of interest and concern in establishing whether or not a full migration to a more portable and scalable component-based architecture will be able to represent the legacy business requirements in the underlying requirements model of the re-engineered information systems.

As a result, this study poses the question: Is the resulting component-based requirements model ontological equivalent to the legacy requirements model when
shifting paradigms in the re-engineering process?

After a literature review, the research study is justified given the differences in requirements modeling between component-based and traditional paradigms, which
give an indication that the resulting component model might not represent the same business requirements represented in the legacy system requirements model.
The study evaluated the requirements models generated by the component-based and traditional approaches when shifting paradigms in the re-engineering process in
order to verify that the re-engineered component-based requirements model was capable of representing the same business requirements of the legacy system. Design science and an ontological evaluation using the Bunge-Wand-Weber
(BWW) model were the central research methodologies for this study.

A legacy system was selected as part of the case study and re-engineered by using the component-based paradigm with the help of UML diagrams. The requirements model of the legacy system was recovered using reverse engineering and compared to the component-based requirements model using normalized reference models generated with the help of BWW transformation maps. These maps revealed that the
re-engineered requirements models were capable of representing the same business requirements of the legacy system. A set of rules was suggested when reengineering
legacy into component-based information systems to ensure the same representation of legacy system’s requirements in the re-engineered requirements model.

Finally, this research included directions of future research that put emphasis on the development of automated software tools for systems re-engineering that could
implement the rules suggested in this study and the ontological methodology approach used.