Enterprise
Architecture Tutorial
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Architecture
Toolkit
For many organizations an enterprise architecture,
properly engineered, could possibly be the single most effective
tool they can use to ensure that the right information gets to the
right people, in the right format, and at the right time.
An
enterprise architecture links an enterprise’s strategic plan and
performance plans ("business architecture") with its enterprise data
architecture, enterprise application architecture and enterprise
technical architecture.
A
well-documented architecture is a logical organization of
information pertaining to the following multi-level,
multi-dimensional, enterprise-wide elements:
§
Strategic
goals, objectives, and strategies
§
Business
rules and measures
§
Information
requirements
§
Application
systems
§
Relationships between applications and
data elements
§
Technology
infrastructure
An
enterprise architecture also contains guidelines, standards,
policies and business rules that define the enterprise’s software
engineering environment.
Every
enterprise has an architecture. However, it is usually
undocumented and the elements are inconsistent. Most likely some of
the architecture elements are embodied in strategic and performance
plans, published and unpublished polices and procedures, and system
documentation.
Unfortunately, there are also a lot of enterprise
architecture elements that are embedded in software application
code, and even more that only exist as employee "tribal
knowledge."
An enterprise that has
fully documented it’s architecture can use it to accomplish the
following:
§
Enable
strategic information to be consistently and accurately derived from
operational data
§
Promote data
sharing, thus reducing data redundancy and reducing maintenance
costs
§
Improve
productivity through component development, management and
reuse
§
Reduce
software development cycle time
§
Evaluate
commercial products and services
§
Share
information with customers and business
partners
In
order to establish an enterprise architecture that can be used to
gain these benefits, it must be “engineered.” This requires rigorous and
repeatable approach that is strategically-driven,
information-centric, model-based, and technology independent. It also requires tools that
fully support the approach.
This approach can also be extended to include all the
activities necessary for effective enterprise strategic information
management
Enterprise Architecture Toolkit: the
definitive resource for Enterprise Architecture
projects
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