Enterprise Architecture: a snapshot from practice

Enterprise Architecture (EA) has been portrayed as one of the cornerstones of modern IT Governance, with increasing numbers of organisations formally recognising an EA function and adopting EA frameworks such as TOGAF (http://www.opengroup.org/togaf/) (The Open Group Architectural Framework). Many claims have been made of the benefits of EA, yet little is known as to what organisations actually do or evidence of the benefits they accrue through EA. In this paper we report on the results of a small scale survey painting a snapshot of current EA practice in large UK organisations across the private and public sectors. 

Urbanization of Information Systems as a Trigger for enhancing Agility: A State in The Tunisian Firms

Nowadays, the information Systems (IS) became one of the main assets of modern corporations, but it faces many problems. Among the most important are low productivity and a large number of failures like obsolescence, heavier, slower and complexity of applications integration. The problem of low productivity of IS was the product of the software crisis, as indicated by the delayed development and implementation of ISs and accumulation which leads to maintenance problems. Requests for new or improved version of the IS have grown faster than the ability of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) to develop the existing IS. Some reasons are: the increase in the cost of software development and the IT choices of the CIO. All the above problems are further exacerbated by the growing complexity and size of software products. The IS is obliged to overcome these difficulties and ensure its evolution. To do this, urbanization is a framework that aims to simplify the IS, to improve communication between its components and to ensure its evolution. In an exploratory approach, this study examines the concept of urbanization studying its impact on the IS to ascertain agility. This was done in order to ascertain the evolution of IS and guarantee the agility facing the environment turbulence. The general assertion is that the Urbanized Information Systems (UIS) changes a firm vision because its procure flexibility, reactivity and interoperability of UIS. The originality of this paper is to explore IS urbanization considered as a French framework of Enterprise Architecture (EA), this study is an empirical validation of the agility of UIS. Keywords Information Systems, Urbanization, Enterprise Architecture (EA), flexibility, Agilit

The Impact of Service-Oriented Architecture on Business Networkability

Increased networking among firms has become a competitive necessity in many industries and the ability to efficiently establish, operate and dissolve business relationships has become a competitive advantage. The degree of this networkability is influenced by several factors, such as organizational structure, business processes, people and culture, but also information systems. In fact, current technological developments aim at the efficient and flexible orchestration of standardized modules, referred to as services. Past research has analyzed networkability primarily qualitatively without providing a specific perspective on the concept of service-oriented architecture (SOA) which has only emerged on a broad scale since the beginning of this century. This paper is a first attempt to investigate the impact of SOA on the notion of business networkability. It is assumed that the ability to flexibly link business services among business partners also positively influences the firm’s networkability. Empirical evidence will be provided from the financial industry which is currently undergoing a strong vertical disintegration. The results show a moderate, but nevertheless significant impact

Examining the Organizational Decision to Adopt Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) - Development of a Research Model

What are the determinants of an organization’s decision to adopt Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)? Although the paradigms of service orientation and SOA have become quite omnipresent in the IS literature, research is still lacking to provide a comprehensive view upon drivers and inhibitors of the organizational decision to adopt SOA. Based on the mature strand of adoption research, this paper develops a conceptual model in order to increase the understanding of the determinants influencing this decision. Thereby, the drivers and inhibitors are distinguished in organization-specific and innovation-specific factors. The organization-specific factors cover two aspects: (1) the compatibility of technology and organization (i.e., SOA expertise of the employees, management support for SOA, IT/ Business alignment, degree of process documentation) and (2) management fad and fashion. The innovation-specific factors cover the perceived benefits, perceived complexity, and standardization of available technologies related to SOA. Beside developing this theoretical model for laying the foundation for future empirical research, a further contribution of this paper is the development of a comprehensive measurement model for SOA adoption, which differentiates between the IT and the enterprise layer

The Mechanics of Enterprise Architecture Principles

Inspired by the city planning metaphor, enterprise architecture (EA) has gained considerable attention from academia and industry for systematically planning an IT landscape. Since EA is a relatively young discipline, a great deal of its work focuses on architecture representations (descriptive EA) that conceptualize the different architecture layers, their components, and relationships. Beside architecture representations, EA should comprise principles that guide architecture design and evolution toward predefined value and outcomes (prescriptive EA). However, research on EA principles is still very limited. Notwithstanding the increasing consensus regarding EA principles’ role and definition, the limited publications neither discuss what can be considered suitable principles, nor explain how they can be turned into effective means to achieve expected EA outcomes. This study seeks to strengthen EA’s extant theoretical core by investigating EA principles through a mixed methods research design comprising a literature review, an expert study, and three case studies. The first contribution of this study is that it sheds light on the ambiguous interpretation of EA principles in extant research by ontologically distinguishing between principles and nonprinciples, as well as deriving a set of suitable EA (meta-)principles. The second contribution connects the nascent academic discourse on EA principles to studies on EA value and outcomes. This study conceptualizes the “mechanics” of EA principles as a value-creation process, where EA principles shape the architecture design and guide its evolution and thereby realize EA outcomes. Consequently, this study brings EA’s underserved, prescriptive aspect to the fore and helps enrich its theoretical foundations

A Framework for the Design of Service Maps

The concept of service-oriented architecture (SOA) is recognized as an important enabler for business transformation and application integration. Service maps emerge when individual services are (pre)configured on various architectural levels. For example, business-oriented service maps sustain the communication and coordination among participants within and between businesses. Difficulties occur when, based on different service design strategies, heterogeneous service maps are created which need to be aligned. A methodological approach to establish a systematic design process for such service maps within companies or business networks is needed

An Exploration of Enterprise Architecture Research

Management of the enterprise architecture has become increasingly recognized as a crucial part of both business and IT management. Still, a common understanding and methodological consistency seems far from being developed. Acknowledging the significant role of research in moving the development process along, this article employs different bibliometric methods, complemented by an extensive qualitative interpretation of the research field, to provide a unique overview of the enterprise architecture literature. After answering our research questions about the collaboration via co-authorships, the intellectual structure of the research field and its most influential works, and the principal themes of research, we propose an agenda for future research based on the findings from the above analyses and their comparison to empirical insights from the literature. In particular, our study finds a considerable degree of co-authorship clustering and a positive impact of the extent of co-authorship on the diffusion of works on enterprise architecture. In addition, this article identifies three major research streams and shows that research to date has revolved around specific themes, while some of high practical relevance receive minor attention. Hence, the contribution of our study is manifold and offers support for researchers and practitioners alike

A PROPOSITION OF CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS INFLUENCING SOA IMPLEMENTATION IN HEALTHCARE

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has been proved to be a significant integration paradigm in many sectors including healthcare. The importance of the development of integrated Information Technology (IT) services and infrastructures in healthcare is enormous as medical errors that occur due the non integrated nature of healthcare systems result in the loss of human lives. The normative literature demonstrates that organizations have difficulties in getting full benefits from SOA adoption for various reasons. Thus, we suggest that the investigation of Critical Success Factors (CSFs) related to SOA implementations in healthcare is important as the understanding of these factors may help organizations to increase the benefits they get from SOA and improve SOA acceptance rate. As a result we review the literature to identify SOA CSFs in healthcare and we classify them. Then we test them through a case study in a public healthcare organization. The results stress the crucial importance of governance and culture and proposed that a new CSF called ?Communications? should be considered. In doing so, we extend the body of literature and we suggest that further research is required to better understand SOA CSFs in healthcare

Benefits of Cloud Computing: Literature Review in a Maturity Model Perspective

Cloud computing is drawing attention from both practitioners and researchers, and its adoption among organizations is on the rise. The focus has mainly been on minimizing fixed IT costs and using the IT resource flexibility offered by the cloud. However, the promise of cloud computing is much greater. As a disruptive technology, it enables innovative new services and business models that decrease time to market, create operational efficiencies and engage customers and citizens in new ways. However, we are still in the early days of cloud computing, and, for organizations to exploit the full potential, we need knowledge of the potential applications and pitfalls of cloud computing. Maturity models provide effective methods for organizations to assess, evaluate, and benchmark their capabilities as bases for developing roadmaps for improving weaknesses. Adopting the business-IT maturity model by Pearlson & Saunders (2007) as analytical framework, we synthesize the existing literature, identify levels of cloud computing benefits, and establish propositions for practice in terms of how to realize these benefits