Architecture support for system-of-systems evolution

Abstract

Support is required to cope with the increasing demands and challenges of system evolution in large organizations. The support needs to come from not only new technology platforms or design solutions but also capabilities to deal with systems knowledge in all aspects of existing systems’ architectures. This paper introduces a key concept, architecture evolution environment, as a basis to develop architecture capabilities enabling the evolution of system-of- systems (SOS). This environment maintains the architecture information of individual systems, and supports the integration and evolution of systems in the context of system-of-systems. In particular, architecture interfaces are introduced to effectively facilitate system composition.