Empirical Validation of Software Integration Practices in Global Software Development

Software complexity accrues, as modern societies are highly dependent on large-scale, software-intensive systems that increasingly operate within an environment of continuous availability. Global software development (GSD) vendors strive to reduce this complexity by decomposing the target software product into various components that are developed in-house, outsourced or purchased as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. Subsequently, these components are integrated into a final working product. However, there is a lack of specific practices to be followed by GSD vendors in the software integration phase. In our previous study, we identified a list of nine software integration critical success factors (CSFs) for GSD vendors. In order to assist GSD vendors in adoption of the identified CSFs, we conducted another Systematic Literature Review (SLR) for identification of practices and validated the results using questionnaire survey. We identified 116 software integration practices/solutions that will help GSD vendors in trimming down the complexity of their software integration process.