Enterprise architecture
Encyclopedia
An enterprise architecture (EA) is a rigorous description of the structure
of an enterprise
, which comprises enterprise components
(business entities), the externally visible properties of those components, and the relationships (e.g. the behavior
) between them. EA describes the terminology, the composition of enterprise components
, and their relationships with the external environment, and the guiding principles for the requirement (analysis), design, and evolution of an enterprise. This description is comprehensive, including enterprise goals, business process
, roles, organizational structures, organizational behaviors, business information
, software applications and computer systems.
Practitioners of EA call themselves enterprise architect
s. An enterprise architect is a person responsible for developing the enterprise architecture and is often called upon to draw conclusions from it. By producing an enterprise architecture, architects are providing a tool for identifying opportunities to improve the enterprise, in a manner that more effectively and efficiently pursues its purpose.
The term enterprise includes the whole complex, socio-technical system, including:
Defining the boundary or scope of the enterprise to be described is an important first step in creating the enterprise architecture. Enterprise as used in enterprise architecture generally means more than the information systems employed by an organization.
s. These artifacts describe the logical organization of business functions, business capabilities, business processes, people organization, information resources, business systems, software applications, computing capabilities, information exchange and communications infrastructure within the enterprise.
A collection of these artifacts, sufficiently complete to describe the enterprise in useful ways, is considered by EA practitioners an 'enterprise' level architectural description, or enterprise architecture, for short. The UK National Computing Centre EA best practice guidance states
and continues
This is the definition of enterprise architecture implicit in several EA frameworks including the popular TOGAF
architectural framework.
An enterprise architecture framework bundles tools, techniques, artifact descriptions, process models, reference models and guidance used by architects in the production of enterprise-specific architectural description. A unified architecture framework consists of a coherent set of integral modules to collectively form a holistic discipline guiding the process of developing solutions in an enterprise computing environment, as described in Solution Architecting Mechanism (SAM).
See the related article on enterprise architecture frameworks for further information.
In 1992, Steven Spewak described a process for creating an enterprise architecture that is widely used in educational courses.
s. In his book on Enterprise Architecture, Spewak divides the practice into two domains at 'level 2': business modelling and current systems and technology, and three subordinate domains at 'level 3': data architecture, applications architecture, and technology architecture. The final level of Spewak's EAP is the implementation or methods level, which deals with "how" to migrate the Enterprise to match the new model.
The popular TOGAF framework divides the practice into three domains: business architecture, information systems architecture and technology architecture—and then subdivides the information systems architecture into information architecture and applications architecture.
The Strategic Architecture model allows for a flexible division into up to ten domains covering many aspects of an enterprise from its objectives and goals through its projects and programmes to its software applications and technology.
EA Domains: An enterprise architecture’s landscape is usually divided into various domains based on the attributes of the environment and the logical grouping based on Industry EA Frameworks
The dividing of the practice into a number of domains allows enterprise architects to describe an enterprise from a number of important perspectives. This practice also encourages the contributions of many individuals and allows the practice as a whole to make good use of individual domain-specific expertise and knowledge. By taking this approach, enterprise architects can ensure a holistic description is produced.
The popular and most common four domains and their component parts look like this:
1. Business:
2. Information:
3. Applications:
4. Technology:
(IT) can be justified.
One method of using this information to improve the functioning of a business, as described in the TOGAF architectural framework, involves developing an "architectural vision": a description of the business that represents a "target" or "future state" goal. Once this vision is well understood, a set of intermediate steps are created that illustrate the process of changing from the present situation to the target. These intermediate steps are called "transitional architectures" by TOGAF. Similar methods have been described in other enterprise architecture frameworks.
Federal Government in the context of the Capital Planning and Investment Control
(CPIC) process. The Federal Enterprise Architecture
(FEA) reference models serve as a framework to guide Federal agencies in the development of their architectures. Companies such as Independence Blue Cross, Intel, Volkswagen AG and InterContinental Hotels Group
have also applied enterprise architecture to improve their business architectures as well as to improve business performance and productivity
.
process in organizations such as Dubai Customs and AGL Energy who have implemented a formal enterprise architecture process as part of their IT management strategy. While this may imply that enterprise architecture is closely tied to IT, this should be viewed in the broader context of business optimization in that it addresses business architecture
, performance management
and process architecture
as well as more technical subjects. Depending on the organization, enterprise architecture teams may also be responsible for some aspects of performance engineering
, IT portfolio management
and metadata management. Recently, protagonists like Gartner and Forrester have stressed the important relationship of Enterprise Architecture with emerging holistic design practices such as Design Thinking
and User Experience Design
.
The following image from the 2006 FEA Practice Guidance of US OMB sheds light on the relationship between enterprise architecture and segment(BPR) or Solution architecture
s. (This figure demonstrates that software architecture
is truly a solution architecture discipline, for example.)
Activities such as software architecture, network architecture
, and database architecture are partial contributions to a solution architecture.
(ACM) and Association for Information Systems
(AIS)’s Curriculum for Information Systems as one of the 6 core courses. There are several universities that offers enterprise architecture as a fourth year level course or part of a master's syllabus. The Center for Enterprise Architecture at the Penn State University is one of these institutions that offer EA courses. It is also offered within the Masters program in Computer Science at The University of Chicago. In 2010 resarchers at the Meraka Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
, in South Africa organized a workshop and invited staff from computing departments in South African higher education institutions. The purpose was to investigate the current status of EA offerings in South Africa. A report was compiled and is available for download at the Meraka Institute.
Structure
Structure is a fundamental, tangible or intangible notion referring to the recognition, observation, nature, and permanence of patterns and relationships of entities. This notion may itself be an object, such as a built structure, or an attribute, such as the structure of society...
of an enterprise
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
, which comprises enterprise components
Component
-Usage:Component may refer to:* System components, the constituents of a system* Electronic components, the constituents of electronic circuits* Component ingredient, the main ingredient in a dish...
(business entities), the externally visible properties of those components, and the relationships (e.g. the behavior
Behavior
Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...
) between them. EA describes the terminology, the composition of enterprise components
Component
-Usage:Component may refer to:* System components, the constituents of a system* Electronic components, the constituents of electronic circuits* Component ingredient, the main ingredient in a dish...
, and their relationships with the external environment, and the guiding principles for the requirement (analysis), design, and evolution of an enterprise. This description is comprehensive, including enterprise goals, business process
Business process
A business process or business method is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product for a particular customer or customers...
, roles, organizational structures, organizational behaviors, business information
Business information
Business information is one of the three main segments of the information industry. The other two segments are scientific, technical and medical and educational and training content....
, software applications and computer systems.
Practitioners of EA call themselves enterprise architect
Enterprise architect
Enterprise architects are practitioners of enterprise architecture; an information technology management discipline that operates within organizations.-Role of enterprise architects:...
s. An enterprise architect is a person responsible for developing the enterprise architecture and is often called upon to draw conclusions from it. By producing an enterprise architecture, architects are providing a tool for identifying opportunities to improve the enterprise, in a manner that more effectively and efficiently pursues its purpose.
Scope
The term enterprise is used because it is generally applicable in many circumstances, including- Public or private sector organizations
- An entire business or corporation
- A part of a larger enterprise (such as a business unit)
- A conglomerate of several organizations, such as a joint venture or partnership
- A multiply outsourced business operation
The term enterprise includes the whole complex, socio-technical system, including:
- people
- information
- technology
- business (e.g. operations)
Defining the boundary or scope of the enterprise to be described is an important first step in creating the enterprise architecture. Enterprise as used in enterprise architecture generally means more than the information systems employed by an organization.
Methods and frameworks
Enterprise architects use various business methods, analytical techniques and conceptual tools to understand and document the structure and dynamics of an enterprise. In doing so, they produce lists, drawings, documents and models, together called artifactArtifact (software development)
An artifact is one of many kinds of tangible by-product produced during the development of software. Some artifacts help describe the function, architecture, and design of software...
s. These artifacts describe the logical organization of business functions, business capabilities, business processes, people organization, information resources, business systems, software applications, computing capabilities, information exchange and communications infrastructure within the enterprise.
A collection of these artifacts, sufficiently complete to describe the enterprise in useful ways, is considered by EA practitioners an 'enterprise' level architectural description, or enterprise architecture, for short. The UK National Computing Centre EA best practice guidance states
Normally an EA takes the form of a comprehensive set of cohesive models that describe the structure and functions of an enterprise.
and continues
The individual models in an EA are arranged in a logical manner that provides an ever-increasing level of detail about the enterprise: its objectives and goals; its processes and organization; its systems and data; the technology used and any other relevant spheres of interest.
This is the definition of enterprise architecture implicit in several EA frameworks including the popular TOGAF
TOGAF
The Open Group Architecture Framework is a framework for enterprise architecture which provides a comprehensive approach for designing, planning, implementation, and governance of an enterprise information architecture...
architectural framework.
An enterprise architecture framework bundles tools, techniques, artifact descriptions, process models, reference models and guidance used by architects in the production of enterprise-specific architectural description. A unified architecture framework consists of a coherent set of integral modules to collectively form a holistic discipline guiding the process of developing solutions in an enterprise computing environment, as described in Solution Architecting Mechanism (SAM).
See the related article on enterprise architecture frameworks for further information.
In 1992, Steven Spewak described a process for creating an enterprise architecture that is widely used in educational courses.
Areas of practice
Several enterprise architecture frameworks break down the practice of enterprise architecture into a number of practice areas or domainArchitecture domain
An architecture domain in enterprise architecture is a broad view of an enterprise or system. It is a partial representation of a whole system that addresses several concerns of several stakeholders...
s. In his book on Enterprise Architecture, Spewak divides the practice into two domains at 'level 2': business modelling and current systems and technology, and three subordinate domains at 'level 3': data architecture, applications architecture, and technology architecture. The final level of Spewak's EAP is the implementation or methods level, which deals with "how" to migrate the Enterprise to match the new model.
The popular TOGAF framework divides the practice into three domains: business architecture, information systems architecture and technology architecture—and then subdivides the information systems architecture into information architecture and applications architecture.
The Strategic Architecture model allows for a flexible division into up to ten domains covering many aspects of an enterprise from its objectives and goals through its projects and programmes to its software applications and technology.
EA Domains: An enterprise architecture’s landscape is usually divided into various domains based on the attributes of the environment and the logical grouping based on Industry EA Frameworks
The dividing of the practice into a number of domains allows enterprise architects to describe an enterprise from a number of important perspectives. This practice also encourages the contributions of many individuals and allows the practice as a whole to make good use of individual domain-specific expertise and knowledge. By taking this approach, enterprise architects can ensure a holistic description is produced.
The popular and most common four domains and their component parts look like this:
1. Business:
-
- Strategy maps, goals, corporate policies, Operating ModelOperating ModelOperating model is a term that is used in many contexts. An operating model is the abstract representation of how an organization operates across process, organization, technology domains in order to deliver value defined by the organization in scope....
- Functional decompositions (e.g. IDEF0IDEF0IDEF0 is a function modeling methodology for describing manufacturing functions, which offers a functional modeling language for the analysis, development, reengineering, and integration of information systems; business processes; or software engineering analysis.IDEF0 is part of the IDEF family...
, SADTSadtStructured Analysis and Design Technique is a software engineering methodology for describing systems as a hierarchy of functions.- Overview :...
), business capabilities and organizational models expressed as enterprise / line of business architecture - Business processBusiness processA business process or business method is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product for a particular customer or customers...
es, Workflow and Rules that articulate the assigned authorities, responsibilities and policies - Organization cycles, periods and timing
- Suppliers of hardwareComputer hardwarePersonal computer hardware are component devices which are typically installed into or peripheral to a computer case to create a personal computer upon which system software is installed including a firmware interface such as a BIOS and an operating system which supports application software that...
, software, and services
- Strategy maps, goals, corporate policies, Operating Model
2. Information:
-
- Information architectureInformation ArchitectureInformation architecture is the art of expressing a model or concept of information used in activities that require explicit details of complex systems. Among these activities are library systems, Content Management Systems, web development, user interactions, database development, programming,...
- a holistic view on the flow of information in an enterprise - Data ArchitectureData architectureData Architecture in enterprise architecture is the design of data for use in defining the target state and the subsequent planning needed to achieve the target state...
- describes the way data will be processed, stored , data flows and used by the projects teams that will use it - Master Data ManagementMaster Data ManagementIn computing, master data management comprises a set of processes and tools that consistently defines and manages the non-transactional data entities of an organization...
, is the authoritative, reliable foundation for data used across many applications and business processes with the goal to provide a single view of the truth no matter where the data is located - MetadataMetadataThe term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
- data that describes your enterprise data elementData elementIn metadata, the term data element is an atomic unit of data that has precise meaning or precise semantics. A data element has:# An identification such as a data element name# A clear data element definition# One or more representation terms...
s - Business IntelligenceBusiness intelligenceBusiness intelligence mainly refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes....
Analytics & Reporting BI (Business Intelligence) is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help the organization users make better business decisions. These include the activities of decision support systems, query and reporting, dashboards , scorecards ,statistical analysis, forecasting, and data mining. This includes Reporting Data Stores ( Operational Data Store (ODS), Datamart and DataWarehouses) - Data Quality helps identify, analyze, improve, and measure the data quality and data integrity issues and improvement efforts
- Data modelData modelA data model in software engineering is an abstract model, that documents and organizes the business data for communication between team members and is used as a plan for developing applications, specifically how data is stored and accessed....
s: conceptual expressed as enterprise information architectures, logical, and physical - Data Life Cycle Management Processes to govern how to create, classify, update, use, distribute, and archive, and obsolete data and information
- Information architecture
-
- Application softwareApplication softwareApplication software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
inventories and diagrams, expressed as conceptual / functional or system enterprise / line of business architectures - Interfaces between applicationsApplication programming interfaceAn application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
- that is: events, messages
- Application software
4. Technology:
-
- Inter-application mediating software or 'middleware'.
- Application execution environments and operating frameworks including applications server environments and operating systems, authentication and authorisation environments, security systems and operating and monitoring systems.
- Hardware, platforms, and hosting: serverServer (computing)In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
s, datacentres and computer rooms - LocalLocal area networkA local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building...
and wide area networkWide area networkA wide area network is a telecommunication network that covers a broad area . Business and government entities utilize WANs to relay data among employees, clients, buyers, and suppliers from various geographical locations...
s, InternetInternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
connectivity diagrams - IntranetIntranetAn intranet is a computer network that uses Internet Protocol technology to securely share any part of an organization's information or network operating system within that organization. The term is used in contrast to internet, a network between organizations, and instead refers to a network...
, ExtranetExtranetAn extranet is a computer network that allows controlled access from the outside, for specific business or educational purposes. An extranet can be viewed as an extension of a company's intranet that is extended to users outside the company, usually partners, vendors, and suppliers...
, InternetInternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, eCommerce, EDIElectronic Data InterchangeElectronic data interchange is the structured transmission of data between organizations by electronic means. It is used to transfer electronic documents or business data from one computer system to another computer system, i.e...
links with parties within and outside of the organization - Operating SystemOperating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
- InfrastructureInformation InfrastructureAn information infrastructure is defined by Hanseth as "a shared, evolving, open, standardized, and heterogeneous installed base" and by Pironti as all of the people, processes, procedures, tools, facilities, and technology which supports the creation, use, transport, storage, and destruction of...
software: Application serverApplication serverAn application server is a software framework that provides an environment in which applications can run, no matter what the applications are or what they do...
s, DBMSDatabase management systemA database management system is a software package with computer programs that control the creation, maintenance, and use of a database. It allows organizations to conveniently develop databases for various applications by database administrators and other specialists. A database is an integrated... - Programming Languages, etc. expressed as enterprise / line of business technology architecture.
Using an enterprise architecture
Describing the architecture of an enterprise aims primarily to improve the effectiveness or efficiency of the business itself. This includes innovations in the structure of an organization, the centralization or federation of business processes, the quality and timeliness of business information, or ensuring that money spent on information technologyInformation technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
(IT) can be justified.
One method of using this information to improve the functioning of a business, as described in the TOGAF architectural framework, involves developing an "architectural vision": a description of the business that represents a "target" or "future state" goal. Once this vision is well understood, a set of intermediate steps are created that illustrate the process of changing from the present situation to the target. These intermediate steps are called "transitional architectures" by TOGAF. Similar methods have been described in other enterprise architecture frameworks.
The growing use of enterprise architecture
Documenting the architecture of enterprises is done within the U.S.United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Federal Government in the context of the Capital Planning and Investment Control
Capital Planning and Investment Control
Capital Planning and Investment Control is a structured, integrated approach to managing information technology investments. It is the primary process for making investment decisions, assessing investment process effectiveness, and refining investment related policies and procedures...
(CPIC) process. The Federal Enterprise Architecture
Federal Enterprise Architecture
A federal enterprise architecture is the enterprise architecture of a federal government. It provides a common methodology for information technology acquisition, use, and disposal in the Federal government....
(FEA) reference models serve as a framework to guide Federal agencies in the development of their architectures. Companies such as Independence Blue Cross, Intel, Volkswagen AG and InterContinental Hotels Group
InterContinental Hotels Group
InterContinental Hotels Group plc is a global hotels company headquartered in Denham, United Kingdom. It is the largest hotels company in the world measured by rooms , and has over 4,500 hotels across over 100 countries...
have also applied enterprise architecture to improve their business architectures as well as to improve business performance and productivity
Productivity
Productivity is a measure of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it. Usually this ratio is in the form of an average, expressing the total output divided by the total input...
.
Relationship to other disciplines
Enterprise architecture is a key component of the information technology governanceInformation technology governance
Information Technology Governance, IT Governance is a subset discipline of Corporate Governance focused on information technology systems and their performance and risk management...
process in organizations such as Dubai Customs and AGL Energy who have implemented a formal enterprise architecture process as part of their IT management strategy. While this may imply that enterprise architecture is closely tied to IT, this should be viewed in the broader context of business optimization in that it addresses business architecture
Business architecture
A business architecture is a part of an enterprise architecture related to corporate business, and the documents and diagrams that describe that architectural structure of business...
, performance management
Performance management
Performance management includes activities that ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner. Performance management can focus on the performance of an organization, a department, employee, or even the processes to build a product or service, as well as many...
and process architecture
Process architecture
Dualistic Petri nets are a process-class variant of Petri nets.Like Petri nets in general and many related formalisms and notations, they are used to describe and analyze process architecture.-Process Modeling with dPNs :...
as well as more technical subjects. Depending on the organization, enterprise architecture teams may also be responsible for some aspects of performance engineering
Performance Engineering
Performance engineering within systems engineering, encompasses the set of roles, skills, activities, practices, tools, and deliverables applied at every phase of the Systems Development Life Cycle which ensures that a solution will be designed, implemented, and operationally supported to meet the...
, IT portfolio management
IT portfolio management
IT portfolio management is the application of systematic management to large classes of items managed by enterprise Information Technology capabilities. Examples of IT portfolios would be planned initiatives, projects, and ongoing IT services...
and metadata management. Recently, protagonists like Gartner and Forrester have stressed the important relationship of Enterprise Architecture with emerging holistic design practices such as Design Thinking
Design thinking
Design Thinking refers to the methods and processes for investigating ill-defined problems, acquiring information, analyzing knowledge, and positing solutions in the design and planning fields...
and User Experience Design
User experience design
User experience design is a subset of the field of experience design that pertains to the creation of the architecture and interaction models that affect user experience of a device or system...
.
The following image from the 2006 FEA Practice Guidance of US OMB sheds light on the relationship between enterprise architecture and segment(BPR) or Solution architecture
Solution architecture
Solution architecture in enterprise architecture is a kind of architecture domain, that aims to address specific problems and requirements, usually through the design of specific information systems or applications.Solution architecture is either:...
s. (This figure demonstrates that software architecture
Software architecture
The software architecture of a system is the set of structures needed to reason about the system, which comprise software elements, relations among them, and properties of both...
is truly a solution architecture discipline, for example.)
Network architecture
Network architecture is the design of a communications network. It is a framework for the specification of a network's physical components and their functional organization and configuration, its operational principles and procedures, as well as data formats used in its operation.In...
, and database architecture are partial contributions to a solution architecture.
Published examples
It is uncommon for a commercial organization to publish rich detail from their enterprise architecture descriptions. Doing so can provide competitors information on weaknesses and organizational flaws that could hinder the company's market position. However, many government agencies around the world have begun to publish the architectural descriptions that they have developed. Good examples include the US Department of the Interior, US Department of Defense Business Enterprise Architecture, or the 2008 BEAv5.0 version.Academic qualifications
Enterprise Architecture was included in the Association for Computing MachineryAssociation for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
(ACM) and Association for Information Systems
Association for Information Systems
The Association for Information Systems is an international professional organization serving as the premier global organization for academics specializing in Information Systems...
(AIS)’s Curriculum for Information Systems as one of the 6 core courses. There are several universities that offers enterprise architecture as a fourth year level course or part of a master's syllabus. The Center for Enterprise Architecture at the Penn State University is one of these institutions that offer EA courses. It is also offered within the Masters program in Computer Science at The University of Chicago. In 2010 resarchers at the Meraka Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research is South Africa's central and premier scientific research and development organisation. It was established by an act of parliament in 1945 and is situated on its own campus in the city of Pretoria...
, in South Africa organized a workshop and invited staff from computing departments in South African higher education institutions. The purpose was to investigate the current status of EA offerings in South Africa. A report was compiled and is available for download at the Meraka Institute.
See also
- Architecture Patterns ( EA Reference Architecture)Architectural pattern (computer science)An architectural pattern in software is a standard design in the field of software architecture. The concept of a software architectural pattern has a broader scope than the concept of a software design pattern...
- Business Technology ManagementBusiness Technology ManagementBusiness technology management is a management science that seeks to unify business and technology decision-making at every level in an enterprise. BTM delivers a set of guiding principles, known as BTM capabilities. These capabilities are combined to form BTM solutions, around which a company's...
- Design ThinkingDesign thinkingDesign Thinking refers to the methods and processes for investigating ill-defined problems, acquiring information, analyzing knowledge, and positing solutions in the design and planning fields...
- Enterprise ArchitectEnterprise architectEnterprise architects are practitioners of enterprise architecture; an information technology management discipline that operates within organizations.-Role of enterprise architects:...
- Enterprise Architecture Assessment FrameworkEnterprise Architecture Assessment FrameworkThe Enterprise Architecture Assessment Framework is created by the US Federal government Office of Management and Budget to allow federal agencies to assess and report their enterprise architecture activity and maturity....
- Enterprise Architecture framework
- Enterprise Architecture PlanningEnterprise Architecture PlanningEnterprise Architecture Planning in Enterprise Architecture is the planning process of defining architectures for the use of information in support of the business and the plan for implementing those architectures.- Overview :...
- Enterprise engineeringEnterprise engineeringEnterprise engineering is a subdiscipline of systems engineering, which applies the knowledge and methods of systems engineering to the design of businesses. The discipline examines each aspect of the enterprise, including business processes, information flows, and organizational structure...
- Enterprise Life CycleEnterprise Life CycleEnterprise Life Cycle in enterprise architecture is the dynamic, iterative process of changing the enterprise over time by incorporating new business processes, new technology, and new capabilities, as well as maintenance, disposition and disposal of existing elements of the enterprise.- Overview...
- Enterprise Unified ProcessEnterprise Unified ProcessThe Enterprise Unified Process is an extended variant of the Rational Unified Process and was developed by Scott W. Ambler and Larry Constantine in 2000, eventually reworked in 2005 by Ambler, John Nalbone and ....
- GINA : Global Information Network ArchitectureGINA : Global Information Network ArchitectureThe concept for the Global Information Network Architecture evolved from a realization that the current technologies provided an unprecedented opportunity to create a useful Global Information Grid that could transform the possibilities for Net-Centric Operations.The Global Information Network...
- Information ArchitectureInformation ArchitectureInformation architecture is the art of expressing a model or concept of information used in activities that require explicit details of complex systems. Among these activities are library systems, Content Management Systems, web development, user interactions, database development, programming,...
- IT Governance
- IT Portfolio ManagementIT portfolio managementIT portfolio management is the application of systematic management to large classes of items managed by enterprise Information Technology capabilities. Examples of IT portfolios would be planned initiatives, projects, and ongoing IT services...
- IT Service ManagementIT Service ManagementIT service management is a discipline for managing information technology systems, philosophically centered on the customer's perspective of IT's contribution to the business. ITSM stands in deliberate contrast to technology-centered approaches to IT management and business interaction...
- Modeling Enterprise Architecture with Service-Oriented ModelingService-oriented modelingService-oriented modeling is the discipline of modeling business and software systems, for the purpose of designing and specifying service-oriented business systems within a variety of architectural styles, such as enterprise architecture, application architecture, service-oriented architecture,...
- Open Source Enterprise Architecture ToolsOpen Source Enterprise Architecture ToolsOpen-source enterprise architecture tools are a class of enterprise architecture tool that are licensed such that they can be freely used, extended and modified by anyone. Traditionally, enterprise architecture tools are proprietary based and require a license and sometimes a support contract to...