Visualizing and analyzing software infrastructures

Companies frequently need to redesign their software infrastructures in response to marketplace changes, but they must do so carefully so that the new architecture will not disrupt existing operations or increase operating costs unnecessarily. To support these goals, system architects have long recognized the need to build a repository of information about all of their company's systems and their interfaces. Using this information, architects create system interface diagrams to help them study the existing architecture. The authors discuss their system, Enterprise Navigator, which lets users make ad hoc queries about an enterprise software architecture and then automatically generate the corresponding system interface diagram in real time on the Web.