A CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) tool is a generic term used to denote any form of automated support for software engineering. In a more restrictive sense, a CASE tool means any tool used to automate some activity associated with software development. Many CASE tools are available. Some of these CASE tools assist in phase related tasks such as specification, structured analysis, design, coding, testing, etc.; and others to non-phase activities such as project management and configuration management.
Reasons for using CASE tools
The primary reasons for using a CASE tool are:
• To increase productivity
• To help produce better quality software at lower cost CASE environment Although individual CASE tools are useful, the true power of a tool set can be realized only when these set of tools are integrated into a common framework or environment. CASE tools are characterized by the stage or stages of software development life cycle on which they focus. Since different tools covering different stages share common information, it is required that they integrate through some central repository to have a consistent view of information associated with the software development artifacts. This central repository is usually a data dictionary containing the definition of all composite and elementary data items. Through the central repository all the CASE tools in a CASE environment share common information among themselves. Thus a CASE environment facilities the automation of the step-by-step methodologies for software development
