Computing Tech R&D Solutions

Computing applications have increased dramatically over the past decade. However, the design and implementation of complex application software remains expensive and error-prone. Much of the cost and effort stems from the continuous re-discovery and re-invention of core concepts and components across the software industry. In particular, application developers in more complex domains have traditionally lacked standard "off-the-shelf'' frameworks. As a result, developers in these domains largely build, validate, and maintain software systems from scratch. In an era of deregulation and stiff global competition, however, it has become prohibitively costly and time consuming to develop applications entirely in-house from the ground up.
In order to reduce the cost and improve the quality of software, COMStar Institute provides COM.* application frameworks with source code to those industrial companies and research institutions who need pilot projects to develop their own application projects. The frameworks are the reusable, "semi-complete'' applications that can be specialized to produce custom applications. The frameworks are targeted for particular business units and application domains. This enables programmers to develop and deploy complex applications rapidly and robustly, rather than wrestling endlessly with low-level infrastructure concerns.
The COM.* application frameworks provide partial or full source code package as needed. The frameworks include the key technical components, classes, functions (methods), and other important parts of the program projects. Application developers can directly develop their own applications based on the frameworks or create new projects by copying or reusing the source code from the frameworks.
In general, the primary benefits of COM.* application frameworks, they provide to developers, are described below:
  • Modularity: The frameworks enhance modularity by encapsulating volatile implementation details behind stable interfaces. Framework modularity helps improve software quality by localizing the impact of design and implementation changes. This localization reduces the effort required to understand and maintain existing software.
  • Reusability: The key features provided by frameworks enhance reusability by defining generic components that can be reapplied to create new applications. Framework reusability leverages the domain knowledge and prior effort of experienced developers in order to avoid re-creating and re-validating common solutions to recurring application requirements and software design challenges. Reuse of framework components can yield substantial improvements in programmer productivity, as well as enhance the quality, performance, reliability and interoperability of software.
  • Extensibility: The framework extensibility is essential to ensure timely customization of new application services and features.
Currently we have several labs with a focus on related research and technology commercialization.