An Assessment of Software Portability and Reusability for the WAM program

This paper provides the World Wide Military Command and Control System Automated Data Processing Modernization (WAM) program with the results of an examination of the topics of portability and reusability. This report will be used to assist the WAM program manager in determining the levels of portability and reusability that are needed in the program and in developing a plan to ensure that these levels are achieved. The portability discussion is limited to three services considered the most important for achieving applications portability: (1) the applications themselves, (2) their interface to the operating system, and (3) their interface to the data management system. This discussion was further focused on Ada applications portability, the Portable Operating System Interface for Computer Environments (POSIX), and Structured Query Language (SQL). The software reusability discussion focuses on benefits available now despite unresolved technical issues inhibiting wide-scale software reuse. The reuse of software offers the potential of increasing productivity in building parts of the system and increasing the quality of the system. These increases in productivity and quality can be expected to result in cost savings, reduced development time, higher system reliability, and other benefits. Recommendations are given for both topics.