Where do we find services in enterprise architectures?

In recent years, enterprise architecture (EA) has captured growing attention as a means to systematically consolidate and interrelate diverse IT artefacts in order to provide holistic decision support. Since the emergence of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), many attempts have been made to incorporate SOA artefacts in existing EA frameworks. Yet the approaches taken to achieve this goal differ substantially for the most commonly used EA frameworks to date.

This paper investigates and compares five widely used EA frameworks in the way they embrace the SOA paradigm. It identifies what SOA artefacts are considered to be in the respective EA frameworks and their relative position in the overall structure. The results show that services and related artefacts are far from being well-integrated constructs in current EA frameworks.

The comparison presented in this paper will support practitioners in identifying an EA framework that provides SOA support in a way that matches their requirements and will hopefully inspire the academic EA and SOA communities to work on a closer integration of these architectures.

See here for more information.

Real virtual worlds: EveryScape in between Fist and Second Life?

By now there is more and more critique on Second Life, see for example Tom Davenport. However, in my opinion Second Life is interesting because of the development of new ICT capabilities and the way people make use of these capabilities (see also a previous post). One of the things fascinating me is that many users are recreating the ‘real’ world as exactly as possible in the virtual world. With respect to a ‘real virtual world,’ I suggested that an interesting platform could emerge when Second Life, Google Earth/Maps, and Flickr (with Microsoft‘s Photosynth) would integrate. I just found out that this is coming sooner then I expected. EveryScape will launch in Fall 2007 and will offer a 3D virtual view upon the real world.

What is not clear to me is what the business model of EveryScape will be. Will EveryScape, just like Second Life, have ‘a fully-integrated economy architected to reward risk, innovation, and craftsmanship’(Second Life: The Marketplace). Will the ‘Scape Artist,’ as they are called by EveryScape, retain the IP rights of their creations? Moreover, what about the rights of the people and companies from the real world? Will the owner of a building in the real world also be the owner of that building is EveryScape? Will EveryScape pay the owner for using the virtual version of the building, or will the owner have to pay EveryScape for using the virtual version of the building?

Have you read more about this? What is your opinion?

Book reading: Benefits Management

Currently I am reading 'Benefits Management: Delivering Value from IS & IT Investments' by Ward and Daniel. They argue that a successful investment in IT requires a process for organizing and managing the actual realization of potential benefits. They draw specific attention to the changes in organizational processes and relationships and the roles and working practices of individuals and teams inside, and in some cases, outside the organization.

Next to providing an analysis of the benefits problem and an understanding of how to tackle it, they also provide a benefit management approach with support for the activities. The benefits dependency network has a central role in this approach (search for examples). An important guideline is, for example, to check whether the people responsible for the changes are also the onces who receive the benefits.

In my opinion benefits management is not only relevant for IT projects of practitioners, but also for IT research projects. I will write a review when I finished reading the book.

Second Life is dead. Long live Second Life!

Much more interesting than the usage metrics are the development of new capabilities by ICT applications like Second Life and the way people make use of these capabilities.

See the post I made on the Blog of my group at the Telematica Instituut.