Our modern information society provides us with a tremendous amount of information. Several issues have surfaced due to the complexity inherent in the handling of the information systems. One of the most important issues is that of providing an architecture and methodology that provide for the development and maintenance of complex, distributed information systems. As the information flow and quantity hinders us from having qualitative information when needed, the architecture must address the reach, richness and value of the information. Network-centric warfare is a problem domain that has been initiated to meet the power of information. To be able to support such continouos sustainability, a robust network infrastructure is critical. A systemic perspective on network-centric environments as well as a technical perspective on network-centric environment shows that, although promising, contemporary implementations having a service-oriented architecture lack support for physical scalability and a cognitive decoupling that would provide for multiple users acting on the same environment. Consequently, a service-oriented layered architecture for communicating entities is presented where these issues are addressed. For verification, a demonstrator is developed upon a service-oriented layered architecture for communicating based on a network-centric warfare scenario.

By means of a systemic approach toward analysis and design of complex systems, we introduce the issue of implementing open computational systems on service-oriented architectures. We start by studying general systems theory, as it accounts for analysis and modeling of complex systems, and then compare three different implementation strategies toward system implementation. As such, the comparison is grounded in the notion of supporting architectures and, more specifically, in the practical case of a service-oriented layered architecture for communicating entities (SOLACE). / More material can be found on http://www.soclab.bth.se