Softwarekartographie

Enterprise IT landscapes are long-lived complex systems consisting of hundreds or thousands of networked information systems. These systems are designed, built, modified, used and financed by people with diverse interests and experience background. Software cartography aims at improving the communication between these people by tailored graphical visualizations which consider business as well as IT aspects and which are particularly suited for long-term and strategic management considerations. In this paper we first summarize the problems that arise in themanagement of enterprise IT landscapes in practice and identify a substantial deficit in communication. Since IT landscapes have to be understood as systems of systems with humans as an integral system element, we identify maps as an attractive approach to overcome this deficit.We then illustrate the core concepts of software cartography by examples and establish connections with other areas of CS and IS research. The paper ends with a discussion how the research results are used in practice.