The external and data loose coupling for the integration of software units: a systematic mapping study

Integration of legacy and third-party software systems is almost mandatory for enterprises. This fact is based mainly on exchanging information with other entities (banks, suppliers, customers, partners, etc.). That is why it is necessary to guarantee the integrity of the data and keep these integration’s up-to-date due to the different global business changes is facing today to reduce the risk in transactions and avoid losing information. This article presents a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) about integrating software units at the component level. Systematic mapping is a methodology that has been widely used in medical research and has recently begun to be used in Software Engineering to classify and structure the research results that have been published to know the advances in a topic and identify research gaps. This work aims to organize the existing evidence in the current scientific literature on integrating software units for external and data loose coupling. This information can establish lines of research and work that must be addressed to improve the integration of low-level systems.