Evaluation of application architecture change cases: Building blocks reusability assessment method

Abstract

The reuse of IT solutions plays an important role, as it enables organizations to develop services more quickly and at reduced cost, and promotes greater interoperability, standardization and cooperation. Organizations increasingly include the reuse principle in their Enterprise architecture (EA) development vision. However, they often lack methods for comprehensive evaluation of changes in Application Architecture (AA) including assessment of reuse of AA components. In this paper, we outline a method for AA change evaluation. The objective of the proposed method is to provide support for establishing a controlled environment for AA change implementation planning to meet defined EA principles. In this paper, we focus on the reuse principle, however the approach can be also adapted for change assessment with regards to other principles such as centralization and standardization.