A Scenario-Based Architecture Evaluation Framework for Network Enabled Capability

The vision of service-oriented computing is one of loosely coupled services that create agile applications to encapsulate business objectives and processes. The potential of services to form complex systems of systems, with emergent behaviour, necessitates the need to understand how we can we develop sufficient confidence in their qualities. In this paper we argue that successful development and evolution of service oriented computing is dependent on making informed decisions at the architectural level. This poses a number of challenges concerning how to evaluate such system architectures and the measurements and metrics that are important in their assessment. This paper describes research-in-progress into the development of a scenario-based architectural evaluation framework that allows architectural-level reasoning across systems of systems in the context of Network Enabled Capability: a UK Ministry endeavour designed to achieve enhanced [military] effect through the physical networking and coherent integration of existing and future resources.