Flexible Architectures for Large-scale Systems

Abstract

In the past, public services often procured information systems that were ‘built to last’ when in fact the real requirement was that they should be ‘built for change’. Their tight vertical integration meant that modifying any part of a system often impacted upon the entire system. What should have been a simple update of a business policy, calculation or rule requiring a few hours’ work turned into a complex, bureaucratic and code-intensive process that instead took months of tedious effort. Such brittle systems built on ‘telephone book’ lists of upfront requirements ironically made it harder for policy to be nimbly adapted, yet the one certainty in government is the need to be flexible to meet constantly changing requirements and alterations in policy.