CASE TOOL

CASE TOOL – (Computer Aided Software Engineering) tools are used in different phases of software development. Software development phases include planning, designing, coding, testing, implementation, deployment and maintenance. All these phases require some tools to handle the process so according to the needs some software engineering tools are available known as CASE Tools. These tools are very beneficial for producing high quality, efficient, detect-free and maintainable software products. CASE Tools can be classified into 3 categories, Tools, Workbenches & Environments.

Tools support only specific tasks in the software process, e.g., functional requirements can be established with the help of tools as it support only specific task. Types of tools which are comes under CASE tools includes, project planning tools, risk management tools, project management tools, documentation tools, system software tools, quality assurance tools etc. Workbenches support only or a few activities. Business planning, analysis, design, verification, validation, programming, maintenance, project management, design management comes under workbenches. Environments support a large part of software development process. It can be simply classified as combination of CASE Tools and workbenches that support the software development process.

By applying CASE tools, a developer adds various “advantages” to the application developed. The biggest advantage is the effectiveness of the operational life of the application with automated excellent documentation of the process of application. CASE tools are very compatible & flexible with development environment; hence less system support is required. But for a successful developer, knowing “disadvantages” is more important than the advantages & these CASE tools have few disadvantages as well. As all major CASE tools & licensed, cost of these tools is the biggest barrier leading towards the rise of project cost. Besides this, difficulty in customization, complexity & fragility are some major problem which might be faced by a developer while using these tools. So a developer needs to have a proactive approach to meet these possible challenges. SMARTDRAW, IBMS/DFD, COPE, ARM, Visual Basic, Prologer V.5 etc. are some CASE tools available to ease the process of application development.