Exploring Metasystems

R ecently, there has been a growing interest in metasystems (or systems of systems), whose com ­ ponents are enterprise systems. Systems engineers and IT pro­ fessionals often use modeling, performance analysis, require­ ment specifications, engineering, integration, architecting, and in­ teroperability among metasystem components to achieve a common goal. However, when it comes to integrating entire systems, we have a long way to go.1 Metasystems are extremely com­ plex due to their extensive use of rapidly changing information and communications technology. This creates challenges for systems en­ gineers and IT professionals in areas such as enterprise systems architecture, engineering, model­ ing, analysis, integration, testing, and validation. Yet the concept of metasystems continues to gain importance because of applica­ tions in networked enterprise development and engineering and in net­centric organizational management.2 Examples of metasystems ap­ plications include large­scale, nationwide electric and energy distribution networks, mobile sensor networks, aviation control networks, wide­area communica­ tion and information networks, and global networked organiza­ tions. Furthermore, metasystem governance principles are used to effectively and efficiently manage geographically distributed net­ worked organizations—such as global supply chains or strategic alliances between corporations. Additionally, geographically dis­ tributed business enterprises—from telecommunications wide­area net­ works to multinational corpora­ tions—are all networked enterprise systems that come together as a metasystem to accomplish a shared strategic goal. Unfortunately, despite all these critical application areas, the metasystem concept has been only loosely defined and is thus often misunderstood. Here, I at­ tempt to define the metasystem and its characteristics, highlight­ ing some of the main challenges for IT professionals.