Towards a Reference Architecture to Provision Tools as a Service for Global Software Development

Organizations involve in Global Software Development (GSD) face challenges in terms of having access to appropriate set of tools for performing distributed engineering and development activities, integration between heterogeneous desktop and web-based tools, management of artifacts developed and maintained over distant locations using different kind of tools, traceability among artifacts, and access to artifacts and data of sensitive nature. These challenges pose additional constraints on specific projects and reduce the possibility to carry out their engineering and development in globally distributed environment. In this paper, we argue the need to have a cloud-enabled platform for supporting GSD and propose reference architecture of a cloud based Platform for providing support to provision ecosystem of the Tools as a Service (PTaaS).