Towards the Next Generation Service Oriented Enterprise Architecture

Emerging business models such as digital ecosystems involving collaborative innovation, participatory decision-making and flexible organizational structures are set to significantly affect inter- and intra-enterprise structure and functionality. This has seen the appearance of increasingly complex Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) scenarios featuring various partnership levels, increased resilience and adaptation to tougher compliance regulations, more seamless integration with process layers, etc. This complexity has brought about the need to broaden the SOA paradigm, so as to include business, infrastructure and multi-layering, resulting in an evolved concept known as Service-Oriented Enterprise Architecture (SOEA). This paper aims to describe the way new business and technology paradigms continue to affect the new SOEA approach and how the inherently holistic Enterprise Architecture (EA) frameworks and related practices can support the emerging complex dynamic, multi-layered and value-chained service-based scenario.