Enterprise Architecture Methodologies

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In 1987, John Zachman, author of the Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture, wrote: “To keep the business from disintegrating, the concept of information systems architecture is becoming less of an option and more of a necessity.” From that assertion 16 years ago, the Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture has evolved and become the model around which major organizations view and communicate their enterprise information infrastructure.

There isn’t any one single enterprise architecture. Instead, it can be considered to consist of inter-related component architecture models, or “architectural views.” These component architectures are business, information, solution, and technical architectures.

The following Enterprise Architecture frameworks are:

The US Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) http://www.cio.gov/documents/fedarch1.pdf

The CIO Council began developing the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework in April 1998. The CIO Council Strategic Plan, dated January 1998, guided by priorities of the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, directed the development and maintenance of a Federal Enterprise Architecture to maximize the benefits of IT within the government. According to this strategic plan, architectures for selected high-priority, cross-agency business lines or segments will be developed to populate the Federal Enterprise Architecture.

The C4ISR Architecture Framework

http://www.enterprise-architecture.info/Images/Defence C4ISR/Enterprise Architecture Tools C4ISR.htm

The C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) Architecture Framework is intended to ensure that architecture descriptions developed by the commands, services, and agencies are inter-relatable between and among each organization’s operational, systems, and technical architecture views, and are comparable and integral across joint and combined organizational boundaries. The framework provides the rules, guidance, and product descriptions for developing and presenting architecture descriptions that ensure a common denominator for understanding, comparing, and integrating architectures.

The application of the framework will enable architectures to contribute most effectively to building interoperable and cost-effective military systems. Architectures provide a mechanism for understanding and managing complexity. The purpose of C4ISR architectures is to improve capabilities by enabling the quick synthesis of “go to war” requirements with sound investments, leading to the rapid employment of improved operational capabilities and enabling the efficient engineering of warrior systems. The ability to compare, analyze, and integrate architectures developed by the geographical and functional, unified commands, military services, and defense agencies from a cross-organizational perspective is critical to achieving these objectives.

The TOGAF Architecture Framework

http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf/

The key to The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) is the TOGAF Architecture Development Method (ADM) a method for developing an enterprise architecture. There are four types of architecture that are commonly accepted as subsets of an overall enterprise architecture, all of which TOGAF is designed to support:

1. Business (or business process) architecture:

This defines the business strategy, governance, organization, and key business processes.

2. Application architecture:

This kind of architecture provides a blueprint for the individual application systems to be deployed, their interactions, and their relationships to the core business processes of the organization.

3. Data architecture:

This describes the structure of an organization’s logical and physical data assets and data management resources.

4. Technology architecture:

This describes the software infrastructure intended to support the deployment of core, mission-critical applications. This type of software is sometimes referred to as “middleware.”

PERFORMANCE REFERENCE MODEL (PRM)

http://www.feapmo.gov/

The PRM is a "reference model" or standardized framework to measure the performance of major IT investments and their contribution to program performance. The PRM has three main purposes:

1.      Help produce enhanced performance information to improve strategic and daily decision-making;

2.      Improve the alignment-and better articulate the contribution of-inputs to outputs and outcomes, thereby creating a clear "line of sight" to desired results; and

3.      Identify performance improvement opportunities that span traditional organizational structures and boundaries.

The PRM attempts to leverage the best of existing approaches to performance measurement in the public and private sectors, including the Balanced Scorecard, Baldrige Criteria, Value Measurement Methodology, program logic models, the value chain, and the theory of constraints. In addition, the PRM was informed by what agencies are currently measuring through PART assessments, GPRA, Enterprise Architecture, and Capital Planning and Investment Control. Agencies' use of the PRM will populate the model over time

Extended Enterprise Architecture' SM the Holistic Perspective

http://www.enterprise-architecture.info/Images/E2AF/E2A Framework Version 09-2003.pdf

The Extended Enterprise Architecture (E2A) in the world of organizations and Technology is addressing 3 major elements at a holistic way:

The element of construction, the element of function and the element of style. Style is reflecting the culture, values, norms and principles of an organization. Most of the time, the term enterprise architecture is dealing with construction and function, without any attention of the style aspect, while the style aspect reflects the cultural behavior, values, norms and principles of that organization in such a way that it reflects the corporate values of that organization. At the same time, the Enterprise Architecture addresses the aspects of Business, Information, Information-Systems and Technology Infrastructure in a holistic way covering the organization and its environment at zoning plan and city plan level.  

META-OMG http://www.enterprise-architecture.info/Images/Documents/META-OMG-WP-Public.pdf This whitepaper describes an approach to strategic planning, architecture development and software project management that is based on research undertaken by META Group, Inc. (www.metagroup.com). It describes META Group’s Enterprise Architecture Planning Process (EA Process) that provides IT organizations with a systematic approach to aligning IT projects with corporate goals and priorities. It goes on to show how the Object Management Group’s new Model Driven Architecture ™ (MDA ™ ) can be used to implement the enterprise systems identified by the EA Process, thus providing organizations with a comprehensive approach to the management and development of IT environments.     Model Driven Architecture http://www.enterprise-architecture.info/Images/MDA/WEB MDA.htm The OMG Model Driven Architecture™ addresses the complete life cycle of designing, deploying, integrating, and managing applications as well as data using open standards. MDA-based standards enable organizations to integrate whatever they already have in place with whatever they build today…and whatever they build tomorrow.

Zachman Framework

http://www.zifa.com/

The Zachman Framework is a framework providing a view of the subjects and models needed to develop a complete Enterprise architecture. A picture of this framework is available at the ZIFA web site.

The Zachman Framework is a widely used approach for developing and/or documenting an enterprise-wide information systems architecture. Zachman based his framework on practices in traditional architecture and engineering. This resulted in an approach, which on the vertical axis provides multiple perspectives of the overall architecture, and on the horizontal axis a classification of the various artifacts of the architecture.

The RAISA Representation Framework

http://www.ifi.uib.no/projects/raisa/representation/representation-main.html

The RAISA representation framework is a meta-model of IS-architectures and their context. The representation framework prescribes which types of information that should be collected as part of an IS-architecture improvement process and how the information should be organised in a form the supports the RAISA method and alignment model.