Support for system evolution through separating business and technology issues in a banking system

It is commonly accepted that there is a need to create IT systems that adapt easily and indefinitely to changing business requirements. Contemporary software design approaches often mix business issues with IT implementation issues to form monolithic systems that are no more responsive to change than their predecessors. The paper introduces an approach which seeks to separate a description of the business system from the technological issues within an IT implementation. Such a separation can serve to handle legacy IT systems today, while providing a strategy for migrating towards systems where business and IT issues are de-coupled and thereby provide improved conditions for system maintenance. The paper demonstrates how a model of the business, software design patterns, contemporary tools and emerging object standards can be used to create the separation. It provides detail of the many issues raised when moving from laboratory based proof of concept systems to a system integrated with existing IT in a prestigious financial institution in the City of London (UK).