ITT545:WEB

ENGINEERING
CHAPTER 1: AN INTRODUCTION TO WEB ENGINEERING
CHAPTER OUTLINE

Motivation Behind Web Engineering

Categories of Web Applications
Characteristics of Web Applications
Evolution of Web Engineering
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES & OUTCOMES

 By the end of this chapter, student should be able to:

 Explain how, web engineering managing complexity and
diversity of large scale web development
 Categories types of web applications and the characteristics
of them.
1.1 MOTIVATION BEHIND WEB
ENGINEERING
WEB SITE vs WEB APPLICATION

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCES??

Web Application
 The term Web application (WebApp) encompasses:
 everything from a simple Web page that might help a consumer
compute an automobile lease payment to a comprehensive website
that provides complete travel services for business people and
vacationers.
 Included within this category are complete websites, specialized
functionality within websites, and information processing applications
that reside on the Internet or on an Intranet or Extranet.

A web application or web app is any application

software that runs in a web browser or is created in a
browser-supported programming language (such as
the combination of JavaScript, HTML and CSS) and
relies on a common web browser to render the
application
PROBLEM OF WEB PROJECT
 Survey by Cutter Consortium:
 Failureto meet business needs (84% of the
projects)
 Time slippages (79% of the projects)
 Cost overruns (63% of the projects)
 Lack of functionality (53% of the projects)
 Poor-quality deliverables (52% of the projects)
 New form of crisis appeared known as WEB
CRISIS
WEB ENGINEERING
 DEFINITION: The application of systematic and quantifiable approaches
(concepts, methods, tools and techniques) to cost-effective
requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing, operation and
maintenance of high quality Web applications (Gerti Kappel).
 Objectives of Web Engineering:
 Clear, consistent, unambiguous and documentable requirements
 SDLC approach of development of Web applications and web sites
 Proper Web project planning
 Continuous feedback and reviews of both developers and
customers.
WEB ENGINEERING
 Advantages of Web engineering
makes it possible to plan and iterate
development processes
permits continuous evolution of Web
applications,
saves both time and cost
Delivers good-quality Web software
1.2 CATEGORIES OF WEB APPLICATIONS
1. Document-centric Web sites
 Very simple : Consists of set of web pages only that are stored
on the Web server
 Client sends request to the server and the response is sent to
the client in a very short time
 BUT, easily hackable
 Example: simply homepages, Webcasts and simple Web
apps
 Interactive Web applications also exits such as AJAX-based
application, where the controls are loaded and unloaded
dynamically.
2. Transactional Web Applications

 involves databases too at its back end in order to store

customer Web data efficiently and consistently
 SQL should also work, not only to read data but also to
manipulate it.
 Examples: Online shopping, online airline booking, online
banking etc.
3. Workflow-based Web Applications

Easy handling of workflows within or between different

organization – need inter-operability.
Require certain structuring of automated processes
Issues: complexity of the Web services, the participating
companies and their workflows.
Examples: B2B solutions in e-commerce, e-government
applications, web-based support of patient workflows.
4. Portal-oriented Web Applications
 Central hubs that act as a point of access to the Web
 Examples: Yahoo, Google
 Specialized portals:
 Businessportals – give information to the employees
through Intranet or Extranet (eg student portal)
 Marketplace portal: Two types; horizontal portals- operates
on business to customer (B2C) market. Vertical portals-
involve companies from a single sector.
5. Ubiquitous Web applications

Provide services as per the customer’s demand like

displaying temperatures on the screen of mobiles of
customers, menu displays of the day etc.
WEB HYPERMEDIA: NON-CONVENTIONAL APPLICATION THAT
HAS HUGE INFORMATION NODES, LINKS, ANCHORS AND
NAVIGATIONS (HTML,XML, JAVASCRIPT AND MULTIMEDIA
APPLICATIONS)

WEB SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS: CONVENTIONAL SOFTWARE

APPLICATION THAT DEPENDS ON WEB OR ITS
INFRASTRUCTURE FOR EXECUTION (E-COMMERCE
APPLICATIONS, DATABASES, KNOWLEDGE BASES, ETC.)

WEB APPLICATION = WEB HYPERMEDIA + WEB SOFTWARE APPLICATION

Categories of Web Applications Based on functionality
Functionality/Category Examples
Informational Newspapers on net, manual, reports,
product catalogues, online books
Interactive Registration forms, online games,
customized information presentations
Transactional Online shopping, online banking,
online airline reservation, online bil
payments
Workflow-oriented Online planning and scheduling,
inventory management, status
monitoring, Software Configuration
Management (SCM)
Collaborative work-management Distributed authoring system,
collaborative design tools
Online communal societies Discussion groups, online
marketplace marketplaces, e-mail, recommender
systems
1.3 CHARACTERISTICS OF WEB
APPLICATIONS
General Characteristics of Web
Applications:
 A well- engineered Web system are:
 Functionally complete and correct
 Usable
 Robust and reliable
 Maintainable
 Secure
 Having a better performance under variable loads
 Scalable
 portable
 Interoperable
 Reusable
 Well-documented
Product-related Characteristics
 Content: Must be correct, integrated and updated
periodically.
 Hypertext: basic unit of any Web applications.
 Node: self-contained and uniquely identifiable
information unit like a Web page, which is essentially an
HTML-like page or document. It can be reached via
uniform resource locators (URLs).
A link: a path form one node to another
 An anchor: the source or destination of a link.
 Presentation: at presentation level, the main focus is on the
graphical user interfaces (GUIs) - should be
Usage-related Characteristics
 Social context: include two aspects:
 Spontaneity: the number of users cannot be reliably
predicted
 Multiculturality:
includes certain behaviors related to
Web such as understanding the user contexts at the
development stage of Web application only, giving
special discounts to regular Web site visitors, etc.
Usage-related Characteristics
 Technical context: it includes the network hardware, software and its
related devices, quality of service and multiplatform delivery.
 Quality of Service (QoS): involves the consideration of various
characteristics of the transmission media like its bandwidth,
reliability, etc. while developing any web application.
 Multiplatformdelivery: multiple platform eg: operating system,
browsers, hardware
 Natural context: includes location and time parameters. Globality
and availability of data that creates a high degree of
heterogeneity.
Development-related
Characteristics
 Development teams: Multidisciplinary and young

 Technical infrastructure: refer to non-uniformity of browsers. Immature

components (applications that have errors or lack functionalities)
may be used due to the market competition.
 Development process: flexibility to react to the changing conditions
thus, it is impossible to have predefined project plan.
 Required integration of already existing solutions:
 Integral integration: integration of Web application with the
existing old/ legacy systems when the available contents have to
be made available throughout the Web application.
 External integration: integration of content and services of the
external Web applications.
1.4 EVOLUTION OF WEB ENGINEERING
 Traditional or conventional software evolution needs a well-planned
series of versions while Web applications are developed
continuously – web applications are in permanent maintenance
phase.

 The constant change of requirements of a Web application is the

core characteristic of Web applications. Change may be in the
product, its usage and its development.
 The evolution of web has brought together some disparate
disciplines like media, information science and communication
technology.

 Web projects require shorter development times and shorter life

cycle due to several market pressures today.

 The advances in the field of Web engineering have led to an

avalanche of Web sites.
SUMMARY
 Recently, the performance, reliability and quality of Web have
increased dramatically. The need is to have a disciplined
development process and a set of principles, procedures, and
practices for achieving a specific goal.

 The emerging branch of Web engineering describe a complete

and ordered approach to the successful Web development

 In this chapter, we have seen how Web engineering is a way of

managing complexity and diversity of large-scale Web
developments