Abstract

Component-based development is a useful approach for building large, complex software systems. However, component discovery and component composition are quite complex and expensive tasks, due to the ever growing number of components in the market. This article proposes to model component providers and consumers as a multi-agent system, allowing providers to advertise their offerings and consumers to express their requirements within a shared quality model. The main contributions of this paper is to propose a testable model for component discovery process, in which software components can become active actors and seek systems that may incorporate them. A case study from the financial domain is used to illustrate the method and to discuss its benefits. © 2010 IEEE.