Abstract Global software development (GSD) refers to developing software with a distributed team spanning multiple locations and time zones. Based on relationships, there are four types of outsourcing: dyadic (one client–one vendor), multi‐vendor (one client–many vendors), co‐sourcing (many clients–one vendor), and complex outsourcing (many clients–many vendors). Compared to the other types of outsourcing contracts, complex outsourcing contracts are the hardest to work on and have the highest risk of project failure. This paper presents a model, the complex outsourcing relationships management model (CORMM), to assist the complex outsourcing stakeholders (both the clients and vendors) in managing their relationships in the context of GSD. This paper aims to develop a CORMM to assist the complex outsourcing relationships management stakeholders in GSD. Also, we are interested in identifying the applicability and effectiveness of the CORMM in the real‐world industry. The research approach follows a structured methodology comprising multiple phases. Initially, it leverages a systematic literature review (SLR) as its primary research method. The second phase involves the validation of the SLR findings via an empirical study. Subsequently, in the third phase, a model is developed. Finally, the proposed research approach is validated by incorporating two industrial case studies to assess the organization's relationship management utilizing the Motorola tool. The case study results show that CORMM can successfully point out relationship management issues in a complex outsourcing context. The feedback received from the participants of both companies indicates several positive and valuable insights about the CORMM and its application in the context of complex outsourcing relationships. The results highlight that CORMM serves as an assessment tool for evaluating an organization's relationship management capability and a means for organizations to enhance their position. Through CORMM, complex outsourcing organizations (many clients–many vendors) can identify strengths and weaknesses in their relationship management practices, enabling targeted improvement efforts.

Abstract The trend toward global software development (GSD) has grown tremendously in recent years because of the rapid acceleration in information and communication technologies (ICTs). The reason for the changing trend toward GSD is to develop high‐quality software with minimum cost and time with round the clock. Despite the benefits gained from GSD, there are certain challenges associated with it. Literature reveals that software integration is an integral challenge in the GSD domain and vendors face numerous difficulties in integrating the software components to build the final product. The main aim of this research study is to develop a software integration model (SIM) that will assist GSD vendors to address the factors linked with various stages of software integration. This model is basically designed for GSD vendor organizations to assess and improve their software integration‐related activities. However, it is also beneficial for GSD client organizations in getting knowledge about the status of the GSD vendor organization's software integration capabilities. The research design is composed of well‐known research strategies including systematic literature review (SLR), questionnaire survey, and case study approach. This research study yielded the SIM. We identified nine critical success factors (CSFs) and 10 critical barriers (CBs) in software integration through SLR‐1 by extracting the data from a sample of 105 papers. Similarly, we also identified a total of 132 practices/solutions, for the identified CSFs and CBs in software integration, through SLR‐2 from a sample of 40 papers. These identified factors and practices were validated from 96 global software industry experts/practitioners through online survey. The identified CSFs, CBs, and their associated practices have been arranged adequately across the six software integration levels of SIM. We have adapted SIM structure from capability maturity model integration (CMMI), implementation maturity model (IMM), and software outsourcing vendors readiness model (SOVRM). We also conducted six case studies in the software industry for SIM applicability and validity. The participants' feedback from the six case studies in GSD vendor's organizations portray that the SIM is beneficial for GSD vendors to assess their software integration capability.

Abstract Software security has become increasingly important because the malicious attack and other hacker risks of a computer system have grown popularity in the last few years. As a result, several researchers have examined security solutions as early as the requirement engineering phase. With the growth of the software business and the internet, there is a need to understand the security risks against each phase of the software development life cycle (SDLC). This study aims to empirically investigate and prioritize the risks that could negatively impact the software security aspects of SDLC in the context of global software development (GSD). To achieve the study objectives, we conducted an industrial empirical study to determine the impact of software security threats against each phase of SDLC. Furthermore, the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) was used to prioritize the list of software security risks against the SDLC. The results and analysis of this study provide a ranked‐based decision‐making framework, which assists the practitioners in considering the most critical security risks on priority. The results show “improper plan for secure requirement identification, inception, authentication, authorization, and privacy,” “lack of threat models updating,” “lack of output validation,” “lack of certification in the final release and archive,” and “spoofing” as the top‐ranked security risks of SDLC in GSD. In addition, the application of FAHP is novel in this domain as it is helpful to address multicriteria decision‐making problems.

Abstract The value of data to a company means that it must be protected. When it comes to safeguarding their local and worldwide databases, businesses face a number of challenges. To systematically review the literature to highlight the difficulties in establishing, implementing, and maintaining secure databases. In order to better understand database system problems, we did a systematic mapping study (SMS). We’ve analyzed 100 research publications from different digital libraries and found 20 issues after adopting inclusion and exclusion criteria. This SMS study aimed to identify the most up-to-date research in database security and the different challenges faced by users/clients using various databases from a software engineering perspective. In total, 20 challenges were identified related to database security. Our results show that “weak authorization system”, “weak access control”, “privacy issues/data leakage”, “lack of NOP security”, and “database attacks” as the most frequently cited critical challenges. Further analyses were performed to show different challenges with respect to different phases of the software development lifecycle, venue of publications, types of database attacks, and active research institutes/universities researching database security. The organizations should implement adequate mitigation strategies to address the identified database challenges. This research will also provide a direction for new research in this area.

Various new technologies have developed as software security solutions have become more critical. One of the essential parts of software quality is the product's security. Though providing examples covering all phases of secure software development is necessary, very few of these situations have been documented. More than a few approaches have been proposed and implemented to handle software security, but only a few of them provide valid evidence for developing secure software applications. This paper presents the results of a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS), which was carried out to determine the existence of software security metrics, tools, standards, and security-related research topics mainly discussed and addressed. A total of 116 studies were chosen for inclusion in this review. Selected studies led us to discover 55 Secure Software Engineering (SSE) metrics, 68 SSE tools, 33 SSE standards, and 12 SSE research topics that have been discussed and addressed. This effort will aid software development firms in better understanding existing security measures employed in creating secure software. It can also serve as a foundation for researchers to build and create new software security solutions and identify new research directions.

Cloud computing adoption provides various advantages for companies. In particular, hybrid cloud shares the advantages of both the public and private cloud technologies because it combines the private in-house cloud with the public on-demand cloud. In order to obtain benefits from the opportunities provided by the hybrid cloud, organizations want to adopt or develop novel capabilities. Maturity models have proved to be an exceptional and easily available method for evaluating and improving capabilities. However, there is a dire need for a robust framework that helps client organizations in the adoption and assessment of hybrid cloud. Therefore, this research paper aims to present a taxonomy of the challenging factors faced by client organizations in the adoption of hybrid cloud. Typically, such a taxonomy is presented on the basis of obtained results from the empirical analysis with the execution of analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method. From the review of literature and empirical study, in total 13 challenging factors are recognized and plotted into four groups: “Lack of Inclination,” “Lack of Readiness,” “Lack of Adoption,” and “Lack of Satisfaction.” The AHP technique is executed to prioritize the identified factors and their groups. By this way, we found that “Lack of Adoption” and “Lack of Satisfaction” are the most significant groups from the identified challenging factors. Findings from AHP also show that “public cloud security concern” and “achieving QoS” are the upper ranking factors confronted in the adoption of hybrid cloud mechanism by client organizations because their global weight (0.201) is greater than those of all the other reported challenging factors. We also found out 46 practices to address the identified challenges. The taxonomy developed in this study offers a comprehensive structure for dealing with hybrid cloud computing issues, which is essential for the success and advancement of client and vendor organizations in hybrid cloud computing relationships.

Secure Software Development (SSD) is becoming a major challenge, due to the increasing complexity, openness and extensibility of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). These make the overall security requirements analysis very difficult. Many techniques have been theoretically developed, however, there is a lack of empirical evidence of its application in building secure software system. A Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) has been conducted in this paper to examine the existence of software security frameworks, models and methods. In total, we selected 116 primary studies. After examining the selected studies, we identified 37 Secure Software Engineering (SSE) paradigms/frameworks/models. The results show that the most frequently used SSE frameworks/models are "Microsoft Software Development Life Cycle (MS-SDL)", "Misuse case modeling", "Abuse case modeling", "Knowledge Acquisition for Automated Specification", "System Security Engineering-Capability Maturity Model (SSE-CMM)" and "Secure Tropos Methodology". This work will help organizations in the development of software to better understand existing security initiatives used in the development of secure software. It can also provide researchers with a basis for designing and developing new methods of software security and identifying new axis of research.

Abstract Software Outsourcing Partnership (SOP) is considered as a type of risk and reward sharing relationship between a client organisation, in the developed countries, and its overseas vendor organisation. Regardless of numerous benefits, the development of SOP still remnants in its infancy stage due to several interactive barriers. Some studies have been conducted to examine the barriers to SOP formation. However, no attempt has been reported so far to explore the multifaceted interrelationships amongst them. To bridge the gap, this study implements Interpretive Structural Model (ISM) approach to reconnoitre the interrelationships amongst the barriers in the context of SOP formation. The objective of this research paper is to develop a framework for modelling structural association amongst the barriers. To achieve the objective, we used a hybrid methodology based on systematic literature review (SLR), empirical survey, and ISM. Firstly, via SLR study, we identified 27 barriers to SOP formation. Secondly, to empirically explore the interrelationships amongst the identified barriers, a questionnaire survey was performed with 50 experts from a total of 20 different countries. Further, interrelationships amongst the barriers were identified using ISM via panel review, and their classifications were carried out via Cross‐Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to the Classification Approach.

Abstract Software Outsourcing Partnership (SOP) is considered as a kind of risk and reward sharing client‐vendor relationship. Generally, a fruitful outsourcing association might be converted to an outsourcing partnership. The objective of this research is to identify and analyse barriers that are hurdles to vendors in renewing or promoting their ongoing client‐vendor relationship to outsourcing partnership. A questionnaire survey based on the findings of Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was performed with 50 experts. The study identifies five critical barriers such as “insufficient quality of technical capability,” “poor infrastructure,” “poor quality of service,” “communication gap and poor coordination,” and “relational risk.” The results indicate that barriers' insufficient quality of technical capability, poor infrastructure, and poor quality of service were common in four types of experts while insufficient quality of technical capability is common in three levels of experts. Furthermore, barriers were classified based on their criticality from client‐vendor perspective. The results of Spearman correlation test (rs = 0.714 and ρ = 0.000) confirmed that the participant strongly agrees with the outcomes of the SLR. The results suggest that for successful renewal or promotion of their existing outsourcing association, vendor organizations should address all the identified barriers in general and the most common barriers in particular.

Software security is an important aspect that needs to be considered during the entire software development life cycle (SDLC). Integrating software security at each phase of SDLC has become an urgent need. To address software security, various approaches, techniques, methods, practices, and models have been proposed and developed. However, recent research shows that many software development methodologies do not explicitly include methods for incorporating software security during the development of software as it evolves from requirements engineering to its final disposal. The primary objective of this research is to study the state-of-the-art of security in the context of SDLC by following systematic mapping study (SMS). In the second phase, we will identify, through systematic literature review (SLR) and empirical study in the industry, the software security contributions, security challenges and their practices for global software development (GSD) vendors. The ultimate aim is to develop a Software Security Assurance Model (SSAM) to assist GSD vendor organisations in measuring their readiness towards the development of secure software.

Abstract Over the last decade, the use of agile methods has grown dramatically for software development. Agile methods guarantee to accelerate the delivery of remarkable software with increased user satisfaction and reduced cost. However, in recent years, due to the emergence of green software engineering, software developers are compelled to focus more on green and sustainable aspects of software. Green software engineering aims to design, develop, and use the software with confined energy and computing resources. Recently, software engineers in global software development have adapted agile methods for quick, interactive, and environment‐friendly software development. In this study, we have identified 16 success factors, through systematic literature review (SLR) and applied contrived search criteria derived from the research questions; 80 relevant papers were identified and reviewed. Findings of the SLR study were then empirically validated through questionnaire survey in global software development industry, in which 106 experts from 25 different countries participated. The findings of our industrial survey are mostly in coherence with the SLR findings. However, there is a difference in ranks of the various success factors across the 2 data sets (SLR and industrial survey).

Abstract Over the last decade, the use of agile methods has grown dramatically for software development. Agile methods guarantee to accelerate the delivery of remarkable software with increased user satisfaction and reduced cost. However, in recent years, due to emergence of green software engineering, software developers are compelled to focus more on green and sustainable aspects of software. Global software engineering aims to design, develop, and use a software with limited energy and computing resources. Recently, software engineers in global software development (GSD) have adapted agile methods for quick, interactive, and environment‐friendly software development. However, there is a lack of specific practices to be followed by GSD vendors in the development of green and sustainable software. In this study, we have identified 36 agile practices through systematic literature review and applied contrived search criteria derived from the research questions; 53 relevant papers were identified and reviewed. Findings of the systematic literature review were then empirically validated through questionnaire survey in GSD industry, in which 106 relevant experts from 25 different countries participated. The identified agile practices are intended to assist GSD vendors in strengthening their agile maturity towards green and sustainable software development.

Abstract Green and sustainable software development has emerged in recent years, and vendors are constantly striving to develop software that has a less hazardous impact on the environment, economy, and human beings. However, developing green software in the context of software multisourcing is not a risk‐free activity, and vendors are exposed to several challenges. The authors have conducted both a systematic literature review and an industrial survey to identify the challenges faced by multisourcing vendors in the development of green and sustainable software. The final publication sample for the systematic literature review is composed of 54 research papers. Similarly, the final sample of the industrial survey is composed of 108 relevant experts. The authors have identified a list of 14 challenges. Of these challenges/risk factors, 8 have been tagged as critical risk factors. These critical risk factors are “lack of green RE practices,” “high power consumption,” “high carbon emission throughout the software development,” “poor software design (architectural, logical, physical, and user interface),” “lack of ICTs for coordination and communication,” “high resource requirements,” “lack of coding standards,” and “lack of green software development knowledge.”

Global software development (GSD) is in a booming stage from the last decade with the advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs). Despite of the benefits gained from GSD, the developer organizations still face a lot of difficulties in integrating the software components, developed by various GSD teams, into a final product. In our previous study we identified a list of nine critical success factors (CSFs) in the software integration process for GSD vendors, using systematic literature review (SLR) method. In order to validate findings of the SLR, we conducted an empirical study using a questionnaire survey in GSD industry. The findings of our industrial survey are mostly coherent with the SLR findings. However, there is a difference in ranks of the various CSFs across the two data sets (SLR and Industrial Survey).

Context The advances in information and communication technologies have revolutionized the software development environment from local to global software development (GSD). This revolution also created challenges for vendor organizations. Vendors face challenges in integrating the components developed independently by GSD teams into a final working product. Objective The objectives of the current study is to find out those critical barriers/challenges that hinder the integration process at any stage in the GSD environment for different types and size of projects. Methodology For achieving the objectives we initially conducted a comprehensive systematic literature review (SLR). We searched 6 digital libraries and also followed the snowballing technique. The data was extracted from a total of 88 finally selected papers. Findings of the SLR study were then empirically validated through a questionnaire survey in GSD industry. A total of 96 experts from 22 different countries participated in the survey. Results We have found a total of 16 barriers/challenges among which ten barriers are ranked as critical barriers/challenges. Some of the top ranked barriers are “lack of communication,” “lack of proper documentation,” “lack of compatibility,” and “architecture mismatch.” The findings of our industrial survey are mostly coherent with the SLR findings. However, there is a difference in ranks of the various barriers/challenges across the 2 data sets (SLR and industrial survey). The identified challenges need to be properly addressed by software vendors to reduce the complexity of the integration process in GSD projects. Conclusion We found that the severity of these barriers increases in large size projects. On the other hand, bespoke products are more affected by “lack of communication,” while off-the-shelf–based projects face integration problems due to “lack of compatibility,” “architecture mismatch,” and “wrong off the shelf product selection and customization”.

The use and size of software are both growing, due to the advances in ICTs, resulting in increased software complexity. The software vendors overcome this complexity by decomposing the product into different components and then these components are developed in-house, outsourced or purchased as off the shelf (OTS) components. The next step is to integrate these components into a final product. In our previous work we identified, through systematic literature review (SLR), a list of nine critical success factors (CSFs) for global software development (GSD) vendors in the software integration process. In order to implement the identified CSFs by GSD vendors, we conducted another SLR study and identified a total of 116 practices/solutions. These practices will assist GSD vendors in the implementation of the identified CSFs in order to overcome the complexity of the integration process in GSD projects.

Global software development (GSD) is gaining momentum due to the potential benefits it offers. GSD aims at delivering remarkable software through a widely distributed pool of experts, with reduced efforts, minimum cost and time. In recent years, GSD developers have reshaped the development processes and have adopted agile techniques and green engineering principles to cope with the frequent changes in requirements, accelerate the development in short increments and to produce energy efficient and sustainable software. However, the adoption of agile methods for developing sustainable software possesses a number of challenges. This paper presents a list of potential challenges/risks identified through systematic literature review (SLR) that need to be avoided by the GSD vendors using agile methods for the development of green and sustainable software. Our findings reveal eight risk factors that are faced by GSD vendors in the development of green and sustainable software using agile methods. GSD vendors are encouraged to address properly all the identified factors in general and the most-frequently cited critical risks in particular, such as in-sufficient system documentation, limited support for real-time systems and large systems, management overhead, lack of customer’s presence, lack of formal communication and lack of long term planning.

Global software development (GSD) is in a booming stage from the last decade with the advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs). Despite of the benefits gained from GSD, the developer organizations still face a lot of difficulties in integrating the software components, developed by various GSD teams, into a final product. The objective of the study presented in this paper is to find out critical success factors (CSFs) for vendors that can play a positive role at any stage of the software integration process. To achieve the purpose we conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) for the identifications of the factors that can be adapted to assist the integration process at various stages i.e. before integration, during integration and after the integration. We have found a total of fourteen success factors among which nine factors are ranked as CSFs. Some of the top ranked CSFs are “Consistency in Requirements and Architecture Design”, “Intra and inter team Communication and Coordination” and “Component/Unit Testing prior to integration”.

Software outsourcing partnership (SOP) is mutually trusted inter-organisational software development relationship between client and vendor organisations based on shared risks and benefits. SOP is different to conventional software development outsourcing relationship, SOP could be considered as a long term relation with mutual adjustment and renegotiations of tasks and commitment that exceed mere contractual obligations stated in an initial phase of the collaboration. The objective of this research is to identify various factors that are significant for vendors in conversion of their existing outsourcing contractual relationship to partnership. We have performed a systematic literature review for identification of the factors. We have identified a list of factors such as 'mutual interdependence and shared values', 'mutual trust', 'effective and timely communication', 'organisational proximity' and 'quality production' that play vital role in conversion of the existing outsourcing relationship to a partnership.

Software development outsourcing is a contract-based relationship between client and vendor organisations in which a client(s) contracts out all or part of its software development activities to a vendor(s), who provides agreed services for remuneration. The objective of this paper is to identify various barriers that have a negative impact on software outsourcing clients in the selection process of offshore software development outsourcing vendors. We have performed a Systematic Literature Review process for the identification of barriers. We have identified barriers `language and cultural barriers', `country instability', `lack of project management', `lack of protection for intellectual property rights' and `lack of technical capability' that are generally have a negative impact on outsourcing clients. The results also reveal the similarities and differences in the barriers identified in different continents. We suggest vendors have to address different barriers in order to compete in the offshore outsourcing business.

CONTEXT - Offshore software development outsourcing is a modern business strategy for producing high quality software at low cost. OBJECTIVE - To identify various Critical Success Factors (CSFs) that have a positive impact on software outsourcing clients in the selection process of offshore software development outsourcing vendors. METHOD - We have performed a Systematic Literature Review process for the identification of factors in the selection process of offshore software development outsourcing vendors. RESULTS - We have identified factors dasiacost-savingpsila, dasiaskilled human resourcepsila, dasiaappropriate infrastructurepsila and dasiaquality of product and servicespsila that are generally considered important by the outsourcing clients. The results also reveal the similarities and differences in the factors identified in different continents. CONCLUSIONS - Cost-saving should not be considered as the only prime factor in the selection process of software development outsourcing vendors. Vendors should have to address other factors in order to compete in the offshore outsourcing business.

Software development outsourcing has been growing steadily. However significant outsourcing failure rates have also been reported. One of the major issues in outsourcing business is that many organisations undertake software outsourcing initiatives without knowing whether or not they are ready to undertake them. The objective of this project is to develop a readiness model in order to measure the organisationpsilas (vendor) readiness for software development outsourcing. Two types of data will be collected in this research project: firstly, factors that can have a positive or negative impact on software outsourcing clients in the selection of software development outsourcing vendors; and secondly, how one can implement these factors. The anticipated outcome of this project will be a software outsourcing readiness model to assist software practitioners in the design of effective software outsourcing strategies. This model should assist outsourcing vendors in measuring the strength or weakness of software outsourcing activities.