CASE tools typically support individual users in the automation of some task within a software development process. Used thus, CASE tools have undoubtedly helped many organizations in their efforts to develop better quality software to budget and within predicted time scales. Further, if tool technology matures according to the current expectations of many industry analysts, then CASE tools offer the potential to revolutionize the way in which much of our software is currently developed. However, the success of integrated sets of CASE tools — i.e., CASE environment — is a more complex issue. The potential for success is great, but is dependent on many factors. Perhaps the most urgent need is for an improved indepth understanding of the meaning and role of integration in a CASE environment. This is important because it will form the foundation for many of the tasks that will follow. For example, without a common understanding of inte gration, we will continue to struggle to have the necessary shared concepts and terminology to allow integration products to be described and compared, standard interfaces to CASE environment components to be agreed upon, and objective measures of the effectiveness of integration approaches to be produced. The focus of this chapter is a review of previous approaches toward defining a common understanding of integration in a CASE environment. We begin by examining the conceptual models of integration that have been developed and that help to understand the main concepts being addressed in an integrated CASE environment. We then look at the main architectural approaches that have been used in constructing a CASE environment, concentrating on the integration that is supported by those architectures. The problem of integrating software components to produce a CASE environment is the central focus of this book. It is a problem that has resisted easy solution and offers a highly difficult challenge to the software community. In attempting to resolve some of the complex issues in CASE tool integration, researchers have sought a conceptual framework through which these issues can be more easily understood and communicated between different people.
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