Challenges in Designing Open Systems

ABSTRACT Open systems offer a building block approach to development that follows sound software engineering principles: well‐defined interfaces, information hiding, weak coupling, and layers of abstraction. Open system standards define the basic system building blocks, providing a foundation for reuse, interoperability, and evolution. But there are new challenges to address with this approach: where do standards belong in an architecture? Which standards are the right ones to use? Are there commercial products that implement the standards? This paper provides some insights based on experiences in developing a standards‐based architecture for migrating a large, complex legacy system to an open system.