The Service-oriented Enterprise: Enterprise Architecture and Viable Services

A service-oriented architecture is fundamental to many new IT applications, from Web 2.0 to social software and cloud-computing. Yet everything is a service: we can apply the same principles to every aspect of the service-oriented enterprise. This book explores how enterprise architecture and viable services link together to create a simpler yet far more powerful view of the enterprise, as a dynamic, unified whole. The techniques described can be used in business transformation, workflow mapping, system design and much else besides, in every type of enterprise - including those in which there is little or no IT at all. Topics covered include: - how to identify and describe the right delivery services, infrastructure services, management services and pervasive services you need for your enterprise - how to distinguish between services you can safely outsource, and services you need to keep in-house - how to enhance service quality, interdependence and completeness - how to pinpoint and map the information-flows you need for service-management and service-performance - how to construct function-models and service-models of your enterprise, as a base for service-mapping - how to use services to support agility and innovation across the entire enterprise If you want to apply the full power of the service-oriented enterprise to your own business context, this is one book you'll definitely need. Tom Graves has been an independent consultant for almost three decades, in business transformation, enterprise architecture and knowledge management. His clients in Europe, Australia and the USA cover a broad range of industries including banking, utilities, logistics, engineering, media, telecoms, research, defence and government. He has a special interest in architecture for non-IT-centric enterprises, and integration between IT-based and non-IT-based services.