Commercial off-the-shelf
As commercial off-the-shelf or also components-off-the-shelf (English for commercial products off the shelf ), COTS for short , series-produced products from the electronics or software sector (see standard software ) are referred to, which are completely similar (coll. "off the peg") are built and sold. This can be done, for example, with office products or inventory management systems.
use
Since no adjustments are made to the needs of the individual customer ex works, the user hopes for extensive cost reductions, since the development costs are not borne by the client alone, but by the market . A major switch to COTS is currently taking place, particularly in the area of authorities and in military applications; in the military, especially from specially developed, robust devices to solutions with standard PC hardware.
In recent years it has become a debatable alternative when building computer clusters to use large numbers of cheap, similar off-the-shelf computers instead of specially built hardware. Linux is often used as the operating system , see also Beowulf (Cluster) .
Demarcation
MOTS ( modifiable off-the-shelf ) is a special form of COTS that is available from series production, but can or must still be adapted to the needs of the end customer .
The opposite of COTS are self-developed industry solutions that are developed for an individual customer such as an authority or a company. The English name for such individual solutions is customer furnished items / materials , short CFI or CFM to German as customized components . One example is application specific integrated circuits ( application specific integrated circuits - ASICs ).
See also
supporting documents
- ↑ Rheinmetall underground hunt simulator , unlimited system life cycle thanks to generic software and COTS hardware
