Introduction to Enterprise Architecture

"the EA is holistic and serves as an umbrella or "meta-context" for all other management and technology best practices."

Scott A. Bernard: "An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture"

When I hear about Enterprise Architecture for the first time, I was surprised that it covers broad areas of theory including strategy, business and technology. Also, application range of EA cover a lot of ground. It can be applied as documentation methodology, management program, standardized policy, and etc.

EA offers us some useful frameworks to visualize image of an organization and its information systems. The image below is one of such a tools, which is called "EA3 Cube Framework".

 

source: http://internationaleainstitute.org/ea-approaches/ea3-cube-framework/

The EA3 cube shows changiable business units. So, we may analyze a company and divide their business into functional business modules with this framework.

In a thesis, "The Trouble With Enterprise Software", service-oriented architecutre (SOA) is propoed as a solution for developing flexible and effective enterprise software. The thesis also point out that "most companies are in the early stages of a four-part transformation to SOA". EA3 will be a helpful tool to achieve this transformation.

What is interesting for me in learning EA is that I can acquire an overhead view of IT systems in an organization. I have worked for several years as ERP software developer, but I have not learned about EA. When I see this cube, I can recognize where I used to be. Perhaps, I was mainly working in "Systems & Applications" layer (also related to Data & Information and Networks & Infrastructure layers). This notion gave me a comprehensive viewpoint on an enterprise, which will enable me to design better information systems.

Another famous model in EA is the Zachman Framework. This framework is composed of matrix, which shows appropriate tools for various situations in enterprise. The rows of the matrix are layers in an enterprise ranging from executive perspective to technician perspective. The columns shows 5W1H (What, When, Where Who Why, How).

This model also gives us birds-eye view of the enterprise architecture.

Then, what is the relationship between UML, which is familiar diagram for engineers, and Zackman Framework. Is UML a part of Zackman? Well, It seems not. Zackman Framework seems only shows abstract instruction for each situations, and not mentions any particular tools such as UML. These diaglams are independently developed for different purposes.

However, some people says to understand interrelationships between diagrams will give us advantages in developing IT systems. Gundars Osvalds proposes an example of combination of Zackman Framework and UML, where UML is used to define the implementation of the architectual model in Zackman Framework. Also, Vitalie Temnenco shows examples of collaboration of Zackman, UML, RUP (the Rational Unified Framework).

These case shows some of frameworks are vary flexible, and we can choose some of them depending on the purpose. In this sense, we may say frameworks are like "vocabulary" of enterprise architects. If we learn many frameworks, we may expand range of solutions. On the other hand, if we only have poor "vocabulary", the range of solutions will be limited.

Also, enterprise architecture is an ever-improving field. Since, EA covers both of technology and business filed, it need to be updated when a new technology appears.

In 2011, Forrester announced a report named “The Top 10 Technology Trends EA Should Watch: 2012 To 2014″. The list is as follows.

1. Elastic Application Platforms Emerge.
2. Platform as a Service Crosses the Chasm.
3. Data Services, Virtualization Reach Critical Mass.
4. Holistic Integration Enables Agile Enterprises.
5. Social IT Becomes Enterprise Plumbing.
6. Improved Virtualization Sets Stage for Private Cloud.
7. Always On, Always Available Is the New Expectation.
8. Network Architecture Evolves to Meet Cloud Demands.
9. Personal Device Momentum Changes Mobile-Platform Strategy.
10. ‘App Internet’ Ushers in the Next Generation of Computing

(Source: http://horizonwatching.typepad.com/horizonwatching/2011/12/forrester-top-10-trends-in-enterprise-architecture.html)

As the same as another IT related filed, EA need to catch up with these quickly changing trends.

Nowadays, the presence of enterprise architecture has became larger. Enterprise architecture is widely adopted by major companies. Basant Mehta, Strategist of Hewlett Packard, says that any of the fortune 500 companies has separated enterprise architecture group.

(Source: YouTube)

The evolution in IT and business will make EA a fundamental activity of management of an enterprise.