From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An enterprise architecture (EA) describes the structure of an enterprise, its decomposition into subsystems, the relationships between the subsystems, the relationships with the external environment, the terminology to use, and the guiding principles for the design and evolution of an enterprise ^[1][2]. An enterprise architecture provides a holistic, systematic description of an enterprise. It encompasses business functions, business process, people, organisation, business information, software applications and computer systems with their relationships to enterprise goals. The hope for enterprise architecture is that applying systematic rational methods to the design of an enterprise will produce one that more effectively and efficiently pursues its purposes.

Enterprise architecture models the organization’s core mission, each component critical to performing that mission, and how each of these components is interrelated. These components include: guiding principles, organization structure, business processes, people or stakeholders, applications, data, infrastructure, and other technologies.

Guiding principles, organization structure, business processes, and people don’t sound very technical. That’s because enterprise architecture is about more than technology. It is about the entire organization (or enterprise) and identifying all of the bits and pieces that make the organization work.^[3]

Practitioners of EA call themselves "enterprise architects." An enterprise architect is a person who develops a holistic view of the enterprise’s strategy, processes, information, and organizational structure – usually delivered as the enterprise architecture.

An early reference to enterprise architecture was in Spewak’s book ^[4] , which defined one of the earliest process frameworks for enterprise architecture. Since the early 2000's, enterprise architecture has become an established technology and discipline as evidenced by the many books on the topic as well its adoption by many corporations and governments.

Generally, rather than build an enterprise architecture from scratch, an enterprise will use an enterprise architecture framework as a starting point for development. Enterprise architecture frameworks include Zachman’s Framework, TOGAF, and FEAF are the more commonly cited architecture frameworks.

Terminology and Terminological Distinctions

An enterprise is a complex system and its description requires the precise use of language. The discipline of enterprise architecture has developed some terminology to allow for precise description and this terminology often expresses some important distinctions. Importantly, is the use of the term, "Enterprise." The term enterprise refers to a complex, socio-technical system that comprises interdependent resources of people, information, and technology that must interact with each other and their environment in support of a common mission ^[5]. The term enterprise is used because it can refer to all types of organizations including businesses, government agencies, divisions of large corporations, or non-profits. The term "enterprise" is preferred by EA practitioners compared to these other names because it is generally applicable in cicumstances where the enterprise being considered is public or private sector, a whole business or corporation or a part or division of one such as a strategic business unit or a conglomerate of several organisations such as a joint venture or partnership or multiply-outsourced business operation. Defining the boundary or 'scope' of the enterprise to be described is an important first step in the EA process. It should also be noted, the term "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 "artifacts". These artifacts describe the logical organization of business functions, business capabilities, business processes, people, 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 ^[6] 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 organisation; 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 architectural framework.

An enterprise architecture framework collects together tools, techniques, artifact descriptions, process models, reference models and guidance used by architects in the production of enterprise-specific architectural description.

See the related article on enterprise architecture frameworks for further information.

Areas of practice

Several enterprise architecture frameworks break down the practice of enterprise architecture into a number of practice areas or "domains". Spewak's EAP 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.^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]}

The dividing of the practice into a number of domains allows enterprise architects to describe an enterprise from a number of important perspectives, dividing the descriptive task between a number of individuals and allowing 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 of the design of the enterprise is produced.

The popular and most common four domains and their component parts look like this:

1. Business:
   1. Strategy maps, goals, corporate policies, Operating Model
   2. Functional decompositions (e.g. IDEF0, SADT), business capabilities and organizational models expressed as enterprise / line of business business architecture
   3. Business processes, Workflow and Rules that articulate the assigned authorities, responsibilities and policies
   4. Organization cycles, periods and timing
   5. Suppliers of hardware, software, and services
2. Information:
   1. Metadata - data that describes your enterprise data elements
   2. Data models: conceptual expressed as enterprise information architectures, logical, and physical
3. Applications:
   1. Application software inventories and diagrams, expressed as conceptual / functional or system enterprise / line of business architectures
   2. Interfaces between applications - that is: events, messages and data flows
4. Technology:
   1. Inter-application mediating software or 'middleware'.
   2. Application execution environments and operating frameworks including applications server environments and operating systems, authentication and authorisation environments, security systems and operating and monitoring systems.
   3. Hardware, platforms, and hosting: servers, datacentres and computer rooms
   4. Local and wide area networks, Internet connectivity diagrams
   5. Intranet, Extranet, Internet, eCommerce, EDI links with parties within and outside of the organization
   6. Operating System
   7. Infrastructure software: Application servers, DBMS
   8. 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 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.

The growing use of enterprise architecture

Documenting the architecture of enterprises is becoming a common practice within the U.S. 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.^{[citation needed]} Companies such as Independence Blue Cross, Intel, Volkswagen AG^[7] and InterContinental Hotels Group have also applied enterprise architecture to improve their business architectures^{[citation needed]} as well as to improve business performance and productivity.

Relationship to other disciplines

Enterprise architecture has become a key component of the information technology governance process in many organizations. These companies have implemented a formal enterprise architecture process as part of their IT management strategy.^{[citation needed]} While this may imply that enterprise architecture is closely tied to IT, it 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.

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 architectures. (From this figure and a bit of thinking one can see that software architecture is truly a solution architecture discipline, for example.)

Activities such as software architecture, network architecture, database architecture may be seen as partial contributions to a solution architecture.

Published examples of enterprise architecture

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,^[8] and the US Department of Defense business transformation agency.^[9]

See also

• Enterprise Architect
• Enterprise Architecture framework
• Enterprise Architecture Planning
• Enterprise engineering
• Enterprise Life Cycle
• Enterprise Unified Process
• GINA : Global Information Network Architecture
• IT Governance
• IT Portfolio Management
• IT Service Management
• Enterprise Architecture Assessment Framework

References

See also

• Department of Defense Architecture Framework
• NATO Architectural Framework

External links

• Enterprise Architecture for Beginners
• MOD Architecture Framework
• DNDAF

From Wikiquote

Enterprise architecture (AE) is the science of designing an enterprise in order to rationalize its processes and organisation.

Sourced

1990s

NIST Enterprise Architecture, one of the first EA models, 1989.

• Architecture discussions frequently focus on technology issues. This paper takes a broader view, and describes the need for an "enterprise architecture" that includes an emphasis on business and information requirements. These higher level issues impact data and technology architectures and decisions.
  • W. Bradford Rigdon (1989) "Architectures and Standards". In: Information Management Directions: The Integration Challenge E.N. Fong and A.H. Goldfine (eds.). NIST Sept 1989. p.136

• There is not a single correct way to develop an architecture or implement standards for every enterprise; they must be customized to the environment.
  • W. Bradford Rigdon (1989) "Architectures and Standards". In: Information Management Directions: The Integration Challenge E.N. Fong and A.H. Goldfine (eds.). NIST Sept 1989. p.136

• Architecture is defined as a clear representation of a conceptual framework of components and their relationships at a point in time... a discussion of architecture must take into account different levels of architecture. These levels can be illustrated by a pyramid, with the business unit at the top and the delivery system at the base. An enterprise is composed of one or more Business Units that are responsible for a specific business area. The five levels of architecture are Business Unit, Information, Information System, Data and Delivery System. The levels are separate yet interrelated... The idea if an enterprise architecture reflects an awareness that the levels are logically connected and that a depiction at one level assumes or dictates that architectures at the higher level.
  • W. Bradford Rigdon (1989) "Architectures and Standards". In: Information Management Directions: The Integration Challenge E.N. Fong and A.H. Goldfine (eds.). NIST Sept 1989. p.137

• DOD will create a Department-wide blueprint (enterprise architecture) that will prescribe how the Department's financial and non-financial feeder systems and business processes interact. This architecture will guide the development of enterprise-level processes and systems throughout DOD.
  • US Army Logistics Management Center (1989). "News". In: Army logistician. p.39

1990s

US DOE Departemental Enterprise Vision, 1998.

• "A key ingredient to an enterprise architecture is the ability to link multiple and disparate systems into a coherent whole."
  • Karyl Scott (1992). "Enterprise computing". In: InfoWorld‎. Vol 14, nr.28, p.96.

• There can be no enterprise architecture without a direct connection to governance.
  • Paul A. Strassmann (1995). The politics of information management: policy guidelines. p.51.

• There is no such thing as a standard enterprise architecture. Enterprise design is as unique as a human fingerprint, because enterprise differ in how they function. Adopting an enterprise architecture is therefore one of the most urgent tasks for top executive management. Fundamentally, and information framework is a political doctrine for specifying as to who will have what information to make timely decisions.
  • Paul A. Strassmann (1995). The politics of information management: policy guidelines. p.53

• Enterprise architecture. This is the Holy Grail of all systems people. Advanced systems textbooks tell you that every organization must have one. Several CIM program directors attempted to come up with this abstraction, only to fail. Only someone with a depth of understanding about how the Pentagon really works could come up with anything of use."
  • Paul A. Strassmann (1995). The politics of information management: policy guidelines. p.422

• Enterprise architecture is a family of related architecture components. This include information architecture, organization and business process architecture, and information technology architecture. Each consists of architectural representations, definitions of architecture entities, their relationships, and specification of function and purpose. Enterprise architecture guides the construction and development of business organizations and business processes, and the construction and development of supporting information systems... Enterprise architecture is a holistic representation of all the components of the enterprise and the use of graphics and schemes are used to emphasize all parts of the enterprise, and how they are interrelated."
  • Gordon Bitter Davis (1999) The Blackwell encyclopedic dictionary of management information systems‎. p.72

2000s

Structure of the US Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework components, 2001.

• Architecture : The fundamental organization of a system embodied in its components, their relationships to each other, and to the environment, and the principles guiding its design and evolution.
  • IEEE-SA (2000) IEEE Recommended Practice for Architectural Description of Software-Intensive Systems (ANSI/IEEE Std 1471-2000). p.9.

• Enterprise architecture is the organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standard reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of a company's operation model.
  • Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, David Robertson (2006). Enterprise architecture as strategy: creating a foundation for business.. p.47

• The key to effective enterprise architecture is to identify the processes, data, technology, and customer interfaces that take the operating model from vision to reality.
  • Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, David Robertson (2006). Enterprise architecture as strategy: creating a foundation for business.. p.47

• The goal of enterprise architecture is to create a unified IT environment (standardized hardware and software systems) across the firm or all of the firm's business units, with tight symbiotic links to the business side of the organization (which typically is 90% of the firm... at least by way of budget). More specifically, the goals are to promote alignment, standardization, reuse of existing IT assets, and the sharing of common methods for project management and software development across the organization.
  • Daniel Minoli (2008) "Enterprise architecture A to Z: frameworks, business process modeling, SOA". p.9

• Enterprise architecture: a coherent whole of principles, methods, and models that are used in the design and realisation of an enterprise's organisational structure, business processes, information systems, and infrastructure.
  • Marc Lankhorst (2009) Enterprise Architecture at Work: Modelling, Communication and Analysis. p.3.

• The most important characteristic of an enterprise architecture is that it provides a holistic view of the enterprise.
  • Marc Lankhorst (2009) Enterprise Architecture at Work: Modelling, Communication and Analysis. p.3.

• To achieve this quality in enterprise architecture, bringing together information from formerly unrelated domains necessitates an approach that is understood by all those involved from those different domains.
  • Marc Lankhorst (2009) Enterprise Architecture at Work: Modelling, Communication and Analysis. p.3.

Unsourced

• "...establishing an enterprise architecture is like reengineering an aircraft in flight".
  • Source: 1997, Object magazine, Volume 7, Edities 7-12. p.24

See also

• Architecture
• Management
• System

External links

Wikipedia has an article about:

Enterprise architecture