Enterprise Architecture Framework

ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE FRAMEWORKS 

Is a communication model for developing an Enterprise Architecture (EA). 

It presents a set of models, principles, services, approaches, standards, design concepts, components, visualizations and configurations that guide the development of specific aspect architectures.

An Enterprise Architecture Framework provides a generic problem space and a common vocabulary within which individuals can cooperate to solve a specific problem. 

EA Frameworks are not necessarily comprehensive, but they can be leveraged to provide at least a starter set of the issues and concerns that must be addressed in the EA development. 

Frameworks can provide guidance on a broader view of architecture than just what can be conveyed in block diagrams. 

Steps in creating the framework 

Carefully evaluate and understand your enterprise business environment. 

Define the goals and objectives of the framework to serve. 

Check which existing framework fits best to your enterprise business environment and goals & objectives. 

Customize the existing framework to your needs and define the appropriate modelling techniques. 

Check your new framework through several dry runs. 

Define your lessons learned and refine the framework and the accompanied processes. 

You cannot possibly decide on the framework structure without these steps. 

Guidance by experienced EA Framework designers/architects can speed up the development of your own framework and can prevent you from making common mistakes.

CHOOSING AN ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE FRAMEWORK 

There are several frameworks which are directed at different communities. 

They share many objectives and approaches. 

There is value in understanding more than one framework if they add to your set of concepts and problem-solving approaches. 

If one framework has most of the things you need, but lacks something: Identify the gaps and fill by borrowing from another framework.

The primary concerns in choosing a framework are: 

Stakeholders 

Domain 

One of the fundamental uses of enterprise architecture descriptions is : communicate with all stakeholders. 

Enterprise Architectural views must provide information that stakeholders need in a way that they can assimilate and use. 

Different kinds of visualizations can be used to address different specific stakeholder concerns.

THE ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE FRAMEWORKS 

Extended Enterprise Architecture Framework (E2AF) 

Enterprise Architecture Planning (EAP) 

Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) 

Treasury Enterprise Architecture Framework (TEAF) 

The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) 

Zachman Framework 

Integrated Architecture Framework (IAF) 

C4ISR and DoDAF 

Department of Defense Technical Reference Model (DoD TRM) 

Computer Integrated Manufacturing Open System Architecture (CIMOSA) 

Standards and Architectures for eGovernment Applications (SAGA)

A commonly held tenet is that enterprise architecture frameworks date to the mid-1980s, in accordance with the publication of the Zachman Framework, developed by then-IBMer John Zachman. But deeper historic inquiries indicate that enterprise architecture frameworks actually got their start two decades earlier, when IBM produced their business systems planning (BSP), an effort that Zachman helped found.

History Of Enterprise Architecture

A researcher of 20th– and 21st-century technology, Svyatoslav Kotusev says that we can look at the history of EAFs in three smaller eras:

• Pre-EA: Originating with IBM, the BSP formalized a methodology that indicates a theory for information systems architecture. It included both a top-down planning approach and an architecture planning process that was divided into a series of steps for a company to follow. The plan, with diagrams and matrices to illustrate its system, can be traced through all EAFs even today. 

• Early EA: This begins in the 1980s and runs into the 1990s, and this era codifies the term “enterprise architecture”. The initial wave of EAF theories include the PRISM, sponsored by IBM among others, released in 1986, the Zachman Framework in 1987, and the NIST EA in 1989. Later entries marked a newer approach in this era including Steven Spewak’s Enterprise Architecture Planning (EAP), which has direct roots to the original BSP, as well as the TAFIM.

• Modern EA: Starting in the late 1990s, this era continues to present day. Newer frameworks include the FEAF, which is based on Spewak’s EAP, as well as the TOGAF, a well-known version today, with roots in the TAFIM. Today’s frameworks aim to provide tangible solutions beyond only IT, integrating all layers of an enterprise, including overall strategy, business needs, IT infrastructure, and applications.