PMDB—a project master database for software engineering environments

The initial results of this work are reported; the PMDB model is described and some of the technical issues in the definition and design of an environment database are discussed.

Abstract

Although the use of Software Engineering Environments (SEE) results in increased software productivity, current SEEs are still in the infant stages and lack critical characteristics such as an integrated project database which stores all data pertinent to a project, i.e., resources, products, management information, etc, and which provides easy access to its data.Driven by projects' needs and motivated by the experiences acquired in the building of the TRW Software Development Environment, an effort was set forth, as part of an Internal Research and Development project, to study the issues associated with an environment database, with the overall objective of defining, designing and developing a Project Master Database (PMDB) as an integrated part of a software development environment. This paper reports the initial results of this work; it describes our PMDB model and discusses some of the technical issues in the definition and design of an environment database.