A Survey on Economic-driven Evaluations of Information Technology

The economic-driven evaluation of information technology (IT) has become an important instrument in the management of IT projects. Numerous approaches have been developed to quantify the costs of an IT investment and its assumed profit, to evaluate its impact on business process performance, and to analyze the role of IT regarding the achievement of enterprise objectives. This paper discusses approaches for evaluating IT from an economic-driven perspective. Our comparison is based on a framework distinguishing between classification criteria and evaluation criteria. The former allow for the categorization of evaluation approaches based on their similarities and differences. The latter, by contrast, represent attributes that allow to evaluate the discussed approaches. Finally, we give an example of a typical economic-driven IT evaluation

The Country-specific Organizational and Information Architecture of ERP Systems at Globalised Enterprises

The competition on the market forces companies to adapt to the changing environment. Most recently, the economic and financial crisis has been accelerating the alteration of both business and IT models of enterprises. The forces of globalization and internationalization motivate the restructuring of business processes and consequently IT processes. To depict the changes in a unified framework, we need the concept of Enterprise Architecture as a theoretical approach that deals with various tiers, aspects and views of business processes and different layers of application, software and hardware systems. The paper outlines a wide-range theoretical background for analyzing the re-engineering and re-organization of ERP systems at international or transnational companies in the middle-sized EU member states. The research carried out up to now has unravelled the typical structural changes, the models for internal business networks and their modification that reflect the centralization, decentralization and hybrid approaches. Based on the results obtained recently, a future research program has been drawn up to deepen our understanding of the trends within the world of ERP systems.Information System; ERP; Enterprise Resource Planning; Enterprise Architecture; Globalization; Centralization; Decentralization; Hybrid

Exploring Maintainability Assurance Research for Service- and Microservice-Based Systems: Directions and Differences

To ensure sustainable software maintenance and evolution, a diverse set of activities and concepts like metrics, change impact analysis, or antipattern detection can be used. Special maintainability assurance techniques have been proposed for service- and microservice-based systems, but it is difficult to get a comprehensive overview of this publication landscape. We therefore conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) to collect and categorize maintainability assurance approaches for service-oriented architecture (SOA) and microservices. Our search strategy led to the selection of 223 primary studies from 2007 to 2018 which we categorized with a threefold taxonomy: a) architectural (SOA, microservices, both), b) methodical (method or contribution of the study), and c) thematic (maintainability assurance subfield). We discuss the distribution among these categories and present different research directions as well as exemplary studies per thematic category. The primary finding of our SLR is that, while very few approaches have been suggested for microservices so far (24 of 223, ?11%), we identified several thematic categories where existing SOA techniques could be adapted for the maintainability assurance of microservices

System Architecture Dynamics The case of Japanese Car Navigation Systems

This paper attempts to clarify how the integration of software and hardware is related to product systems and product development organization in the growing electronic equipment market in the IT age. As a framework for analyzing the effect of integration, we will examine the influence of software on product functions, product development organization and product innovation by introducing the concept of system architecture, which represents the nature of a system, and is defined as a combination of hardware and software. As a particular case, Japanese car navigation market is analyzed. Regarding system architecture, we discuss how both software and hardware have open architecture dynamics, how those dynamics have several trajectories, and have a major impact not only on cooperation between product development structure and external organization, but also on innovation.

Maintenance of Enterprise Architecture Models

Enterprise architecture (EA) models are tools of analysis, communication, and support towards enterprise transformation. These models need a suitable maintenance process to support comprehensive knowledge of the enterprise’s structure and dynamics. This study aims to identify and discuss the existing approaches to EA model maintenance published in the scientific literature. A systematic literature review was employed as the research method. A keyword-based search in six databases identified a total of 4495 papers in which 31 primary studies were included. A total of nine categories of EA model maintenance approaches were identified from both information systems and enterprise engineering fields of research. The increasing amount of research in EA model maintenance suggests that the topic still presents opportunities for research contributions. This study also proposes future lines of research according to the results identified in the theoretical corpus

Analyzing the Evolution and Usage of Enterprise Architecture Management Patterns

Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) evolved to a powerful function to support organizations in strategic decision making and in the fulfillment of business requirements. The organization of an EAM function is not an easy task and demands for best practices, suited to the respective needs of an organization. The pattern-based EAM approach constitutes a collection of such best practices, including detailed information on how to approach EAM activities in organizations. Recent research extended the original EAM pattern structure from 2008 with further concepts to provide more extensive patterns. We conducted an online survey with 31 EAM experts to identify current trends in this domain. We compare documented EAM patterns from 2008 with those identified in the conducted survey to evaluate changes of EAM best practices over the last years. Our research results reveal major changes of EAM needs and best practices, which evolved across several industries and point out clear trends

Comprehensive measurement framework for enterprise architectures

Enterprise Architecture defines the overall form and function of systems across an enterprise involving the stakeholders and providing a framework, standards and guidelines for project-specific architectures. Project-specific Architecture defines the form and function of the systems in a project or program, within the context of the enterprise as a whole with broad scope and business alignments. Application-specific Architecture defines the form and function of the applications that will be developed to realize functionality of the system with narrow scope and technical alignments. Because of the magnitude and complexity of any enterprise integration project, a major engineering and operations planning effort must be accomplished prior to any actual integration work. As the needs and the requirements vary depending on their volume, the entire enterprise problem can be broken into chunks of manageable pieces. These pieces can be implemented and tested individually with high integration effort. Therefore it becomes essential to analyze the economic and technical feasibility of realizable enterprise solution. It is difficult to migrate from one technological and business aspect to other as the enterprise evolves. The existing process models in system engineering emphasize on life-cycle management and low-level activity coordination with milestone verification. Many organizations are developing enterprise architecture to provide a clear vision of how systems will support and enable their business. The paper proposes an approach for selection of suitable enterprise architecture depending on the measurement framework. The framework consists of unique combination of higher order goals, non-functional requirement support and inputs-outcomes pair evaluation. The earlier efforts in this regard were concerned about only custom scales indicating the availability of a parameter in a range.Comment: 22 Page