Enterprise Architecture and Web Services

The enterprise architecture frameworks allow organizations to specify business processes, software systems, communications and information technologies and their relationships therein. What is further evident is a trend towards developing integrated software systems. The enterprise architecture integration framework (EAIF) is integration oriented, and it is composed by integration levels of the processes, the software architecture and related communications and information technologies (CITs). There are several approaches to integrate applications, such as the new architectural style service oriented architecture (SOA), an emerging issue during these last years. The main objective of this research is to propose an extension of the EAIF which incorporates new elements corresponding to the SOA, thus enhancing its usefulness. As a case study, a Help Desk tool is chosen under the SOA approach and Web services, with the purpose of validating the incorporated elements. After instantiating the EAIF with the present case study, we identify all the necessary elements to specify the processes, applications of the software and the CITs which correspond to the Web Services.