This chapter outlines the rational foundations of the enterprise architecture discipline to date and describes ways and situations in which the traditional approaches of enterprise architecture fail to account for a number of contemporary market and economic situations and organizational behaviors. It characterizes new methods and approaches loosely based on systems thinking, with examples from the Australian e-government experience, and argues that the discipline must re-invent itself to incorporate a post-rational perspective to stay relevant. The chapter concludes with narratives of how the new enterprise architecture must engage with business to stay relevant over the next decade and beyond. ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE AS A MATURING DISCIPLINE Enterprise architecture has an identity crisis. Borne of an era of escalating software development and maintenance expenditure of U.S. military and government agencies, enterprise architecture has grown over three decades to encompass a discipline of methods, tools and practices to manage information system complexity. The success of some of enterprise architecture’s methods can be attributed to rational and objective analysis, classification and abstraction of selected features of complex and large-scale problems and systems. But over the last decade, paradigmatic market and business shifts such as the emergence of the Paul R. Taylor Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Enterprise Architecture’s Identity Crisis: New Approaches to Complexity for a Maturing Discipline

The famous binary backoff algorithm in IEEE 802.11 MAC layer can forget the contention level between each successfully transmitted data frame and hence suffers significant performance degradation when the contention level is high. In IEEE 802.11 standard, a distributed contention control (DCC) algorithm is proposed to address this problem by observing how many of slots in the last backoff period were busy, i.e. slot utilization. The introduction of slot utilization can provide good estimation of the most recent congestion dynamics, i.e. transient fluctuations of the traffic. However, it is inaccurate to estimate the overall traffic pattern as one backoff period is too short to obtain accurate stationary statistics. In this paper, a new DCC algorithm is proposed that can combine transient and stationary characteristics, which provides better estimation of congestion level of the medium. Extensive simulation by using NS-2 simulator has shown that our scheme has better throughput and low collisions compared with original binary backoff MAC protocol and slot utilization algorithm (Nononi, Conti and Donatiello, 1998).

A new distributed contention control protocol for the IEEE 802.11 MAC layer - Project of the ATCRC application programs

A NEW DISTRIBUTED CONTENTION CONTROL PROTOCOL FOR THE IEEE 802.11 MAC LAYER - Project of ATcrc Application Programms

A major goal of the software architecture discipline is to develop an environment that promotes the reuse of components across separate software projects. One of the areas that would most benefit from this reuse is in product families of similar software products. Many organizations are in the business of creating several closely related products, whether it be a line of cell phones, cameras, printers, or a banking software suite, each product will need very similar software, with only slight modifications based on the version being produced. In this case, two aspects are needed in order to improve the production of such organizations. First, a common architecture foundation should be shared by each of the products. Second, there should be at least some small amount of basic code at the core of each product that can be reused without modification.In this paper, we will examine current methods of software architecture styles and propose a best method for describing the architecture so that the core components can be reused in many products. Next, we will determine the best practices for describing how the components can be reused, specifically what should be included in both high level and low level documentation. Finally, we will look at software implementation details of how this strategy could be practically applied to projects in the software development industry.

Using software architecture to facilitate reuse in a product family

Information Systems Development Methodologies (ISDMs) are central to the information systems development process, directing and focusing the work of IS practitioners and project leaders. Given the espoused importance of ISDMs, there is surprisingly little evidence of rigorous, industry-based research into practice-in-use or into the development of methodology adaptation guidelines for practitioners. In this article, we develop a framework for future research, intended to stimulate and guide investigations into an ISDM that is used globally. Building upon a review of existing IS literature on ISDM usage, a fresh research direction is proposed, adopting a socio-technical perspective with an emphasis on process-oriented research. The paper suggests that individuals and the work context are important factors affecting the use of ISDMs by IS practitioners. These factors are incorporated into the framework through the combination of the process of technology appropriation with a practice-oriented approach. The paper fills a gap in the literature by proposing an in-depth, multi-method, investigation of the practices adopted by a leading global IT company, collecting a large pool of data and with analysis underpinned by a strong conceptual framework. The paper argues the importance of studies of the method adaptation process involving real projects and real developers working on real problems.

A framework for redesigning information systems development methodologies to enhance global information infrastructure

In recent years, the size and complexity of information systems have grown, with a resulting increased emphasis on using a software development methodology in the belief that by doing so, the experience of other, more experienced, developers can be re-used. Recent studies however, have found that developers do not adhere rigidly to a methodology, but usually adapt it to their specific needs. Also, the extent to which individual software architects apply a specific software architecture development method in practice is largely unexplored. This paper reports on the in practice use of a proprietary software architecture development method, the IBM Custom Application Design. It describes the current state of understanding of application of software architecture methods, explains the research approach applied, reports on the results of the survey and workshops, and describes possible future work. We found that software architects, like software and requirements engineers, do not adhere rigidly to a method. Furthermore, we have identified that there are multiple levels at which the modification to a method can be undertaken. These are "Tailoring", "Adapting" and "Customizing". We also found that a unique version of a method is created for each project and IBM IT architects rely extensively on tools and techniques for visual communication as one of the key ways in which they work. These are important findings for commercial organizations which develop and/or use methods, and for academic institutions which teach software architecture.

A study of the in-practice application of a commercial software architecture

Portfolios and careers

The use and modification of Information Systems Development Methodologies has continued to be an important issue for research and practice as developers struggle to complete large-scale IS development projects. Whilst there is a widespread belief that the use of an ISDM is appropriate when developing an information system, a considerable body of evidence exists to indicate that few practitioners actually use methodologies as described. Instead, ISDMs are tailored to create a unique instantiation for each project. This study explores the application of ISDMs in a large global IT company. The paper contributes to the understanding of ISDM application in two ways. Firstly, it identifies two steps in the tailoring process: a deliberate tailoring of the methodology prior to the commencement of a project based on developers' perceptions of the project and its context; and ad hoc tailoring to meet the real, unfolding development needs of the project. Secondly, it provides a description of the way in which a large, experienced organization using ISDMs has addressed the shortcomings of ISDMs by the introduction of a "meta-methodology"

The Application of an Information Systems Development Methodology in Practice – An Exploratory Study

Software architecture methods play a central role in the development of large enterprise computer systems. However, the extent to which individual experienced IT architects employ a software method is largely unknown. In this paper, we surveyed a group of experienced architects, and set up an “in practice” field study of some of these architects to explore the way they applied a well documented software architecture development method. Among the findings to emerge are that architects modify their method more regularly than previously recognised, and that tools for visual communication are the most commonly used tools by these architects.

/pdf/how-do-experienced-architects-use-architecture-development-1fwb9j7awa.pdf

How Do Experienced Architects Use Architecture Development Methods

Information Systems Development Methodology (ISDM) tailoring is often portrayed as a simple linear process. In this study, the use of an ISDM on a complex, multi-million dollar commercial project is examined. It reveals that ISDM tailoring should be viewed as a complex series of tailoring steps, some of which occur in a proactive (or 'contingent') way in response to known or planned project conditions, whilst others are more reactive in nature and represent improvised responses to project conditions which emerge.

Towards an integrated model of ISDM tailoring

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