A Systematic Mapping of Health, Quality, Evolution, Simulation and Modeling in Software Ecosystems

Context: Software Ecosystems (SECO) have become one of the main drivers of innovation and growth in the Information Technology industry. A SECO consists of a group of interconnected companies that work as a unit and interact with a market, carrying out symbiotic sharing, with exchanges ranging from software to services and artifacts in SECO. Problem: Few studies in the literature discuss the evolution of SECO. The simulation of these environments is also unusual. There is a need to study these areas to understand how SECO systems behave over time and how they evolve. Solution: The process of analyzing the state of the art for the selection of studies requires a more complex approach to its preparation and execution, for this purpose a systematic mapping of the evolution and simulation in SECO with a focus on metrics, quality and health of the SECO. IS Theory: General systems theory, specifically the interfaces between different parts of systems and solutions that communicate, exchanging information. These parts can be systems from different institutions that require integration, consisting of Information Systems. Method: A systematic mapping was planned, followed by its execution with searches for articles in digital databases, reading of works, collection of information, consolidation of results and answers to research questions related to the state of the art on evolution, simulation, health, quality and modeling of SECO. Summary of Results: The results obtained were important to establish gaps and deficiencies in works that address evolution, simulation and modeling of SECO. The main needs are: (i): develop studies on the evolution of SECO, with a focus on modeling; (ii) analyze and evaluate the health and quality of SECO based on metrics; (iii) propose more SECO health and quality metrics; (iv) verify the real impact of the SECO quality study on its health; and (v) develop studies on SSN modeling of SECO. Contributions and Impact in the IS area: As it is an emerging area, the results contribute to SI in bringing discussions about the evolution and simulation of SECO. The main contribution is the pointing out of gaps and deficiencies in relation to the evolution and simulation of SECO as well as the scarcity of work.