I'm a senior java programmer and I'm used to building solutions from scratch. More often, though, I'm hearing people -- managers, clients, and other programmers -- suggesting we look for a COTS (Commerical Off The Shelf) solution.
Thing is, I know about programming, but I don't know about what COTS solutions are available or applicable to what I'm doing.
My question is, how should I best go about finding "COTS" solutions? Are there communities or a websites that focuses specifically on examining "COTS" solutions for programmers, or is it just like anything else, you google for existing products and hope to find a software application that does what you need?
Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Thanks, Rob
One of the things I can say for sure about using a COTS product is you must be given access to the API and documentation. Far to often people run into the issue of paying X for a package and then not utilizing it properly. The other way to go is open source, as it is free and you can modify it as you see fit. Generally you will need to google up the specifics of what you want and you can find side-by-side comparisons for similar products, these however should be taken with a grain of salt. Take the list of products and set up test beds in your environment to see which works best with your current tools and programs and go from there. Vendors often give 30-60 day free trials of their software for this reason.