Requirements for information system reverse engineering support

This paper proposes a general architecture for information systems (or data-centered applications) reverse engineering CASE environments. Recovering the specifications of such applications requires recovering first those of their data, i.e. database reverse engineering (DBRE). First, the paper describes a generic DMS-independent DBRE methodology, then it analyses the main characteristics of DBRE activities in order to collect a set of minimum or desired requirements. Finally, it describes the main features of an operational CASE tool developed according to these requirements. This study and these developments are being carried out as part of the DB-MAIN and DB-PROCESS projects.