The role of service oriented Architecture as an enabler for Enterprise Architecture

Abstract

Organisations are being challenged to ensure that IT delivers on business requirements, but more importantly to ensure that IT can provide greater differentiation and competitive advantage in the context of business, as opposed to the traditional supporting role that many IT professionals have become accustomed to. There needs to be a drastic change in the relationship between IT and business, in order to address the challenges that organisations are currently experiencing and will be experiencing in the future. This change can only be achieved when IT can demonstrate real business value to organisations. SOA, EA and the relationship between them provide a means to achieve the relationship between IT and business by providing a means of defining and implementing business capabilities. This research focused on investigating the guidelines that are needed for SOA to enable EA, in order to provide practical steps that organisations can use for the alignment of SOA and EA.