This recommended practice describes interconnections that need to be understood and evaluated when buying, building, testing, or using computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools. CASE tools are developed for use in creating computing systems. By assisting users to reach a clear understanding of the context of operation for a computing system tool, this recommended practice contributes to the effective implementation and application of computing system tools. This recommended practice does not describe the processes of evaluating, acquiring, or adopting CASE tools. This recommended practice is limited to the technical aspects of CASE tools. It does not include issues in the management, marketing, or training domains.

Interconnections that need to be understood and evaluated when buying, building, testing, or using Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools are described in this recommended practice. This recommended practice is intended to help people interconnect tools by identifying and characterizing various contexts for tool interconnection. Each context serves to define a group of interconnections pertinent to various functional perspectives. Each group contains interconnections that have a common kind of endpoint in the environment. This recommended practice considers four contexts: an organizational context for a tool, the individual user context for a tool, the platform context for a tool, and a peer context for a tool. Within a context, subsets of interconnections are characterized by a collection of common features applicable to a given functional perspective. The purpose of this recommended practice is to establish sets of interconnection features with which each perspective on a CASE tool's interconnections can be characterized.