A Reference Architecture for Embedding Quantum Software into Enterprise Systems

Quantum computing promises a remarkable performance boost for certain applications, including computational intensive problems addressed by enterprise systems. However, software architectures of enterprise systems must consider specific characteristics and quality attributes when collaborating with quantum computing services. Hence, this paper presents a modular reference architecture for embedding quantum software into enterprise systems. Its building blocks consist of loosely coupled and distributed services that implement both quantum-independent and quantum-specific tasks. Although these services either depend on the business domain or the selected quantum algorithm, their orchestration forms a stable and reusable pipeline, specified as an executable BPMN model. For demonstration and evaluation purposes, the proposed reference architecture is utilized in two case studies addressing combinatorial challenges from the field of operations research.