Domain Engineering in CBSE process

The CBSE process encompasses two concurrent sub-processes - domain engineering and component based development.
The intent of domain engineering is to identify, construct, catalog, and disseminate a set of software components that have applicability to existing and future software in a particular application domain. The overall goal is to establish mechanisms that enable software engineers to share these components—to reuse them.

The overall approach to domain analysis is often characterized within the context of object-oriented software engineering. The steps in the process are defined as follows:
- Define the domain to be investigated.
- Categorize the items extracted from the domain.
- Collect a representative sample of applications in the domain.
- Analyze each application in the sample and define analysis classes.
- Develop an analysis model for the classes.

Some of the domain characteristics are as follows :
- It is sometimes difficult to determine whether a potentially reusable component is applicable in a particular situation. A set of domain characteristics may be defined to make this determination.
- A domain characteristic is shared by all software within a domain. It defines generic attribute of all products that exist within the domain. E.g., generic characteristics might include: the importance of safety/reliability, programming language, concurrency in processing.

Examples of application domains are:
* Air traffic control systems
* Defense systems
* Financial market systems

Domain engineering begins by identifying the domain to be analyzed. This is achieved by examining existing applications and by consulting experts of the type of application you are aiming to develop. A domain model is then realized by identifying operations and relationships that recur across the domain and therefore being candidates for reuse. This model guides the software engineer to identify and categorize components, which will be subsequently implemented.

One particular approach to domain engineering is Structural Modelling. This is a pattern-based approach that works under the assumption that every application domain has repeating patterns. These patters may be in function, data, or behaviour that have reuse potential.