Enterprise Architecture

ENTERPRISE

ENTERPRISE

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Complexity & Rate of change

Managing Complexity & Change…

COMPLEXITY

“If _{you can't describe it, you can't create} it.” 

Complex objects (e.g. a 100-storeyed building, an airplane, an Enterprise) that can’t be perceived or seen easily in it’s entirety at one time, cannot be created  without Architecture

CHANGE

Complex objects (e.g. a building, an airplane, an Enterprise) cannot be altered without Architecture. The only possibilities are:

 A. Change the instance and see what happens. (High risk!)

B. Recreate ("reverse engineer") the architectural representations from the existing ("as is") implementation. (Takes time and costs money!)

Gartner definition

• Enterprise architecture (EA) is the process of translating

business vision and strategy into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating and improving the

key requirements, principles and models that describe the enterprise's future state and enable its evolution.

Definition by CISR of MIT

• Enterprise architecture is the organizing logic for business

processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the company's

What does EA include?

• The scope of the enterprise architecture includes the

people, processes, information and technology of the enterprise, and their relationships to one another and to the external environment.

• Enterprise architects compose holistic solutions that

address the business challenges of the enterprise and support the governance needed to implement them.

Goals of EA

• Efficiency

• Effectiveness

• Agility

• Durability

• The purpose of EA is to increase the effectiveness,

efficiency, agility and durability of the enterprise by

supporting the management of the cost, risk and quality of operations and change programs

How is EA Represented

• Normally an EA takes the form of a comprehensive set of

cohesive models that describe the structure and functions of an enterprise.

• 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.

EA Frameworks

• ArchiMate (The Open Group)

• MEGA System Blueprint

• Zachman (Zachman International)

• Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) • US Department of Defense Architecture Framework

(DODAF)

• British Ministry Of Defense Architecture Framework

(MODAF)

• NATO Architecture Framework (NAF)

Zachman Framework

• One off solutions • IT led by local

business units

• Poor integration with other IT systems • Poor server utilisation • Little shared data

• Rationalisation, standardisation, and consolidation of the IT infrastructure

•  Achieving a reliable, cost-effective IT infrastructure shared services model • Focus on quick wins

• Standardising core business processes

• Consolidating applications into a global instance of ERP and CRM • Build re-usable data and business

process platforms

• Top-down. Business processes and IT investments are centralized

• Move from local flexibility to global flexibility

• E.g. creation of reusable modules across business units such as web services

EA Tool Market

The EA tool market consists of software products to

capture, store, analyze and present information related to EA, allowing for multiple architectural views, including

business, information, technology and solutions. The minimum requirements of an EA tool are:

• The ability to create or import models and artifacts

• The ability to present repository information to support a variety of

stakeholder needs

• A robust repository and metamodels that support often-changing

relationships between objects and between various viewpoints

• Requisite administrative capabilities to meet diverse needs such as

Popular EA Tools

• Leaders:

• IBM, Mega, Alfabet, Troux, Open Text (Metastorm), Casewise,

Software AG, BIZZdesign • Challengers:

• Sybase

• Niche

• Atoll Technologies, Future Tech Systems, Promis, Sparx Systems

• Visionaries:

• Qualiware, MooD International, Avolution.

Role of Enterprise Architect

• An enterprise architect supports the CIO in demonstrating

the value that IT brings to the business.

• He understands how views on IT and business

architectures can support business initiatives while

optimizing existing assets. By implementing efficient and reliable enterprise architecture programs, he helps

support innovation, and related IT transformation projects, with cost-effective solutions.

Responsibilities of EA

• Launching and managing enterprise architecture

initiatives.

• Planning and managing all associated activities.

• Elaborating a global picture of the enterprise’s systems

and processes, and their interactions.

• Creating a baseline for measuring the impacts of change in IT and business architectures.

• Increasing the communication with all stakeholders in the

organization.

• Providing targeted analysis reports and dashboards to decision-makers.

• Organizing the EA initiative to align with business strategy

Related Disciplines

• Business Process Automation • IT Governance

•  Application consolidation / rationalization • Performance management

• Business – IT Strategy Alignment • Business Intelligence & Analytics • Enterprise Data Management

• Master Data Management • Data Modeling & Architecture • Metadata Management

• Integration

• Data Integration

•  Application Integration

• Business Process Integration • Performance Engineering • _{Design Thinking}

The Open Group Architecture Framework

(TOGAF)

• TOGAF is based on four pillars, called architecture domains:

• Business architecture or business process architecture which

defines the business strategy, governance, organization, and key business processes of the organization

• Applications architecture which provides a blueprint for the

individual application systems to be deployed, the interactions

between the application systems, and their relationships to the core business processes of the organization with the frameworks for

services to be exposed as business functions for integration.

• Data architecture which describes the structure of an organization's

logical and physical data assets and the associated data management resources

• Technical architecture or t e c h n o l o g y ar c h i t e c t u r e   which describes

the hardware, software and network infrastructure needed to support the deployment of core, mission-critical applications

Zachman Framework

"Enterprise Architecture" would be the total set of descriptive representations (models) relevant for describing an Enterprise, that is, the descriptive representations required to create (a

coherent, optimal) Enterprise and required to serve as a baseline for changing the Enterprise once it is created.

The Engineering Design Artefacts required to represent the  Architecture fall into a two dimensional classification system:

• The focus of the description (Abstraction)

• (What, How, Where, Who, When, Why)

• The usage of the description (Perspective)

Definition by US Government

• "enterprise architecture" - (A) means - (i) a strategic

information asset base, which defines the mission; (ii) the information necessary to perform the mission; (iii) the

technologies necessary to perform the mission; and (iv) the transitional processes for implementing new

technologies in response to changing mission needs; and (B) includes - (i) a baseline architecture; (ii) a target