Framework for Capability and Maturity Evaluation of Service-oriented Enterprise Architectures

SOAMMI - a new framework for evaluating capabilities for change of enterprise and service-oriented software architectures is introduced. Current approaches for assessing maturity of software architectures are intuitively developed, having sparse meta model foundation and being hardly validated. This is a real problem because enterprise and software architects should know what the successful path for introducing and change of service-oriented enterprise architectures is. Our innovation key is to extend existing SOA maturity models to accord to a clear metamodel approach based on the well understood and standardized CMMI model, which is originally used to assess software processes and not architectures. Our specific architecture capability evaluation approach is the result of a metamodel-based synthesis and conception and was founded on the current TOGAF standard for enterprise architectures. Our maturity framework was applied in consecutive assessment workshops with global vendors of service-oriented platforms. Ongoing validations of SOAMMI and framework improvements provide an additional base for future extensions on architecture diagnostics, prognostics and simulations.