Abstract
In 1994, a team of faculty and staff at the University of Pittsburgh completed the design of an enterprise-wide information architecture. The architecture provides the blueprint for developing an integrated set of information services, processes, and technologies, enabling significant efficiencies in business and service processes, and facilitating informed decisions concerning information technology expenditures and acquisitions.Revolutionary in design, the architecture utilizes pattern-based abstraction techniques to enable evolutionary implementation and intelligent use of legacy systems. This paper describes the prototype application programs developed to illustrate sample information processing patterns as well as the look and feel of the envisioned architecture. It focuses on the latest and most ambitious of the prototypes, a client/server application that puts a graphical user interface on a character-based legacy application. This "prototype" is currently in use by faculty advisors and staff in five schools, and is being implemented by several others. It allows the legacy system to be integrated with the University's envisioned enterprise-wide information architecture.