Enterprise Architecture Evolution with NXTware Middleware

Wikipedia defines Enterprise architecture as "the practice of applying a comprehensive and rigorous method for describing a current and/or future structure and behavior for an organization's processes, information systems, personnel and organizational sub-units, so that they align with the organization's core goals and strategic direction. Although often associated strictly with information technology, it relates more broadly to the practice of business optimization in that it addresses business architecture, performance management and process architecture as well."

Enterprise architecture is commonly known in the IT world as a collection of heterogeneous hardware and software that support a company's key business infrastructure. Since the function of IT for most companies is the pursuit of data and knowledge to provide the business with information to make their business more profitable, Enterprise Architecture is the key to maximizing its ability to deliver on that promise. Similarly, Enterprise Architecture frameworks provide the Federal Government with reference models to guide Federal Agencies in the development of their architectures. The primary purpose of creating an enterprise architecture is to ensure that business strategy and IT investments are aligned. As such, enterprise architecture allows traceability from the business strategy down to the underlying technology.

With NXTera 5.0 and NXTware EV, eCube Systems provides an Enterprise Architecture for integrating legacy systems with a systematic approach to Enterprise Evolution and makes legacy evolution the extension of technology equity. This enterprise architecture is based on the evolution of existing business logic and the integration/implementation of contemporary platforms, such as .NET, J2EE, Web Services, HTTP/Servlets and XML.

eCube's Architecture Driven Modernization process called Enterprise Evolution enables companies to extend the value of existing enterprise architecture by defending it from “software hardening” or the growing inflexibility of legacy systems and enabling it to participate as an enterprise service provider.

Software Modernization has a cost, but it shouldn't be performance. In many cases IT organization are finding that developing Enterprise architectures that are used to integrate legacy systems together have created a bottleneck that severely impacts performance. A true software modernization strategy embraces a commitment to steady improvement in performance and the fulfillment of service level goals.

Correspondingly, risk is the something every business executive has to deal with. Whether a company decides to “stay put”, use their existing enterprise architecture, or modernize, there is risk involved. eCube is committed to balancing the risk, with proven technology, proven enterprise architectures and software modernization methods that insure the value of IT efforts moving into the future. Software modernization means that old applications can be maintained, renewed, evolved, transformed or harvested to speed new development in such a way as to assure the ability of every enterprise solution to meet its commitments to the business and exceed expectation to reliability.

For more information, see the ARM process