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ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE

LITERATURE REVIEW

This paper reviews the literature on Enterprise Architecture, taking into

account the various definitions and attributes to this field of study.

Gorazo

BSC ITMB/ 14/02/2014

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Table of Contents 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 2

2 What is Enterprise Architecture (EA) .............................................................................................. 3

2.1 Role of Enterprise Architecture .............................................................................................. 5

2.2 Challenges facing Enterprise Architecture .............................................................................. 6

3 Stakeholder perceptions of EA........................................................................................................ 7

4 Impact of Emerging Standards ........................................................................................................ 9

4.1 The Zachman Framework ....................................................................................................... 9

4.1.1 Impact of the Zachman Framework .............................................................................. 10

5 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 11

6 Reference ...................................................................................................................................... 12

7 Working log book, assignment 2 EA ............................................................................................. 14

Table of Figures

Figure 1: Common fundamental areas covered by EA Frameworks. .................. 3

Figure 2: Viewpoints of EA. .............................................................................. 4

Figure 3: Macro view of the EA environment. .................................................... 5

Figure 4: Key Stakeholders of EA and their organisational level. ........................ 7

Figure 5: 1992 Zachman Framework .......................................................... 9

Figure 6: Impact of the Zachman Framework on the enterprise. ..................... 10

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1 Introduction The generic mission of every organisation is to exist tomorrow and be relevant to their customer

base. The only means of making sure that they survive difficult times is by focusing on creating long

term value and being ready to change to take advantage of opportunities should any arise (Collins &

De Meo, 2011). According to (Zachman, 1997), as part of the competences required by organizations

to create value now and in the future, they must align the operations of the enterprise including the

information systems, processes, and business functions with its strategic direction and business

goals. This method of aligning information technology and business within the organization is

referred to as Enterprise Architecture.

Langenberg & Wegmann (2004) defines Enterprise Architecture as blueprint that documents all the

information systems within the enterprise, their relationships, and how they interact to fulfil the

enterprises mission. EA is aligning information technology with business hierarchically (Wegmann &

Balabko et al., 2005). Enterprise Architecture entails the use of frameworks that support enterprise

analysis from the level of business to the level of Information technology. Zachman in 1987

introduced the Framework for Information Systems Architecture which is mostly regarded as the

initial step towards the EA discipline (Bhagwat & Sharma, 2007).

The name Enterprise Architecture was however not coined until later in 1996 when the

government of America via the Clinger-Cohen Act directed federal agencies to implement a holistic

methodology to align business goals to information technology. The term enterprise architecture has

aroused a lot of thoughts and interests and is now commonly understood as a hierarchical approach

to aligning business and information technology. Some very popular frameworks are The Open

Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), The Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF),

Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture, and The Gartner Methodology. According to

(O'rourke et al., 2003) All of these different frameworks were initiated with the intention of solving

two problems:

The Complexity of Systems Huge sums of money were being spent by organisations to

build IT systems; and

Poor alignment of Business Organisations found it continuously difficult to align the rather

high cost of IT systems with business need.

The consensus before the advent of enterprise architecture was that less value was been attained

from the increasing complexity and cost of IT systems (Bernard, 2005). Currently, the cost of

installing and managing IT systems has increased which means companies are no longer able to

avoid these problems (Lankhorst, 2013). Enterprise Architecture is therefore now more needed than

ever before.

This review will explore the current state of the art in enterprise and information architecture, its

role and challenges. The various stakeholder perceptions of Enterprise Architecture will be looked at

and also what the possible impact of emerging standards could be.

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2 What is Enterprise Architecture (EA) Iso-architecture.org (2014), defines Architecture as 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. The bigger picture here then is that architecture which is

a blueprint, offers a macro view of how the various components of a system (be it business or other)

fit in relation to each other. In relation to enterprise therefore, Langenberg & Wegmann (2004)s

definition falls right on point as the blueprint that documents all the information systems within the

enterprise, their relationships, and how they interact to fulfil the enterprises mission. EA aims at

creating a unified and standardised hardware and software systems across an organisations

business entities with close interdependent links to the business side of the organisation which

usually accounts for 90% of the firms strategy and budget (Minoli, 2008). In detail, the aim as

mentioned sets to promote standardisation, alignment, recycle of current IT assets and development

of software across the organisation including sharing common project management methods.

Theoretically, the effect is that Enterprise Architecture will make Information Technology more

strategic, cheaper and even more responsive.

EA has a purpose which is closely linked to the aim. This is to produce a map of business processes

and IT assets and also a set of governance principles which determines how the strategy of the

business can be communicated through IT (Fowler, 2003). Many of these maps or frameworks of

which four have already been mentioned earlier on exist. All of the existing frameworks cover four

simple but necessary domains as shown in figure 1:

Figure 1: Common fundamental areas covered by EA Frameworks. Source: Writers drawing

EA

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An enterprise architecture team must be created to include:

According to (Schekkerman, 2005), the enterprise architecture team must endeavour to have a

business view point, Governance viewpoint and an Architecture View point as show in the diagram

below:

Figure 2: Viewpoints of EA. Source: Schekkerman (2005)

A macro view of the EA environment is depicted in figure 3. The tabs to the left of the diagram are

external entities that affect a firms operation including the industry it operates in, the firms

competitors, the market, the customers, regulatory boards, opportunities available to the firm and

investors. Driving the firm is its existing business strategy and the various already existing business

and IT assets which all falls under the business viewpoint. The Architecture viewpoint circled to the

right enhances the IT infrastructure to boost its ability to support a final stage IT environment that

Chief Enterprise Architect

Business Architect

Information /Data Architect

Application Architect

Infrastructure Architect

Security Architect

Domain Architect

Business Unit Achitect (who focuses on business)

Functional Domain Architect (focuses on the business function)

Enterprise Architect

Solution Architect

Virtual Architecture Team

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facilitates, enables and supports the business strategy. To this effect, the enterprise would have

successfully developed enterprise architecture.

The lower part of the diagram covers the governance viewpoint which consists of industry

mechanisms that help to create the architecture. Some of these mechanisms are the enterprise

architecture standards, the architecture principles, governance tools and the architecture

frameworks.

Figure 3: Macro view of the EA environment. Source: (Minoli, 2008) with writers added impression.

2.1 Role of Enterprise Architecture From what began as a small pilot scheme within enterprises, EA has now become a much more

appreciated and fully sponsored initiative (Strano & Rehmani, 2007). The growing intend to increase

agility, standardize IT environment and reduce cost has resulted in the rise of EA activities which

mean finding Enterprise Architects to do that job. In America, the need for Enterprise Architects

grew rapidly when the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 was made federal law to exert more pressure on

the Chief of Information (CIO) to improve the management and acquisition of information resources

(Bernard, 2001). Some key roles of EA include:

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2.2 Challenges facing Enterprise Architecture EA covers the entirety of an organisation not just the technology side which means that

being technically savvy is inadequate (Bente et al., 2012). An enterprise architect must

possess soft skills like; good people skills and very good communication skills, also an EA

must have a good understanding of the business and be able to make good and strong

decisions. Enterprise architects mostly have no organisational powers and if they do its

mostly very little which mean that they face various organisational barriers some of which

are:

Commitment of key stakeholders: Influencing management and personnel to buy

into an EAs proposal could be increasingly difficult making it almost impossible to

accomplish the desired goal.

Resources: Being able to win the commitment or interest of key stakeholders is one

step and receiving essential resources like personnel and funds to support project is

another.

Influencing existing projects: It is more difficult for an EA to influence a project or

scheme which is in motion. In a project which is in progress, the teams associated

are usually reluctant to accept the enterprise architects input. In some cases, to

avoid potential impacts to cost and timelines, the team will sidestep the efforts of

the EA to change the architecture (Spewak & Hill, 1993).

Developing a technology vision

and strategy

By revising the status quo to detect gaps and develop an actionable plan to achieve the desired enterprise goal

"Review the target (future) state of how IT shall handle enterprises business processes, information, technology and applications to achieve the business objectives in phases to enable business to execute their mission " Pai (2013).

Methodology lifecycle

An EA team should develop and publish methodology lifecycle application that defines business applications, and design, develop, deploy, support and upgrades underlying technology and applications (Pai, 2013).

Define lifecycle (e.g., recommended rapid application development methods) processes and corporate tasks (e.g., reuse, project management, testing and metrics).

Information & Data Architecture

It is very important to develop an Enterprise Data Model, especially for the common objects such as Customers, Products, Orders, etc. It is the responsibility of the Enterprise Architecture team to partner closely with the business to develop this model as well as data warehouse, shared data services model and roadmap (Pai, 2013).

Integration Architecture

"Define the key systems, modules, components and relationships between major components of the IT infrastructure " Pai (2013).

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3 Stakeholder perceptions of EA

Figure 4: Key Stakeholders of EA and their organisational level. Source: Writers own Drawing

The functions of EA covers 3 functions, according to (Van Der Raadt et al., 2010) which are the

Decision making on EA, the Delivery of EA and the Conformance of EA. For the purpose of this

literature review, the stakeholder groups of EA have been put under four organisational levels as

shown in figure 4 above and these groups formulate their perception of EA based on these 3

functions.

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Based on these functions, the stakeholders of enterprise architecture perceive EA to hold certain

essential capabilities:

Has Vision: that the Enterprise Architect has long term synchronising view and realistic

outlook about the firm and how its business and IT strategy would be realised

Has Functional Knowledge: that the architect is very knowledgeable in software and

hardware components and how they function within an organisation to sustain its business.

Market Trends: that the EA is knowledgeable and aware of current state of the art

innovations and technology within the industry regarding tools, packages and solutions.

Governance processes: that the EA understands the governance structure and formal

decision making processes including reacting to deviations in architecture and exceptions.

Communication: that the EA has an ability to formalise communication within the functions

of architecture and how to make architectural issues clear to key stakeholders.

Collaborative: that the EA collaborates well with other departments so as to outline clear

directions for stakeholders. This also means that the EA is willing and able to liaise with

stakeholders to better understand their problems so as to propose the best solution.

Technological knowledge: that the EA has a detailed and broad knowledge of current

technologies used internally and also about future strategic technologies to be used.

Proactive: that the EA acts decisively when it comes to helping stakeholders to apply policies

etc.

Conformance of EA

"Responsible for implementing organizational changes through solutions described in the target architectures, complying with the EA policies, and provides feedback on the applicability of the

EA products" Raadt (2011).

Delivery of EA

"Responsible for creating and maintaining these products, and provides advice to guide EA decision making.EA delivery also validates projects and operational changes to see whether they

conform to the EA, and provides support in applying EA products" Raadt (2011).

Decision making on EA "This Involves approving new EA products or changes in existing EA products, and handling escalations and waivers regarding EA conformance. EA products (i.e., architectures and EA policies) describe the

EA decisions taken, and provide a means for communicating and enforcing these decisions throughout the organization" Raadt (2011).

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4 Impact of Emerging Standards Many EA standards have been formulated since its inception 20 years ago determined to address the

primary issues of system complexity and poor business alignment. For purposes of this literature

review, the Zachman framework will be discussed to understand its likely impact on the industry. All

of these frameworks or standards seek to solve the same problem but through different means.

4.1 The Zachman Framework Arguable, the most popular of all the standards in the context of enterprise architecture, the

Zachman framework is widely used due to its flexibility characteristic. This framework unlike many

other standards does not force or restrict users to a set of pre-defined artefact (Pereira & Sousa,

2004). According to (Sowa & Zachman, 1992), Zachman suggested that there are six descriptive

applications and six player perspectives as shown in figure 5.

Figure 5: 1992 Zachman Framework Source: Sowa & Zachman (1992)

The two dimensional grid above shows 36 interconnecting cells where there is a meeting point for a

descriptive application (Data to Motivation) and a players perspective (Planner to User). A

horizontal move along Data to Motivation lines will show diverse descriptions from the same

perspective of a player. When moving vertically however, there is an obvious change in the player

whose perspective is been analyzed in relation to a single descriptive application (Zachman, 1986).

The Zachman grid points out 3 suggestions that impacts on the architecture of enterprises.

The first point is that each architectural product or artifact should reside in a particular cell

and in a case where there is confusion as to which cell an artifact belong, then most like

there might be an issue with the artifact.

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Secondly, Zachman believes that the architecture cannot be regarded as complete unless all

associated cells have been completed. Each cell must contain enough artifacts to wholly

describe the system for a player meeting a particular descriptive application.

The third point is that cells in the columns should have a relationship with other columned

cells. An example is that when the Planner identifies the list of things important to the

business, it should have a relationship to the functions that is the business processes.

4.1.1 Impact of the Zachman Framework

Figure 6: Impact of the Zachman Framework on the enterprise. Source: Writers own drawing

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5 Conclusion This literature review has covered a wide range of the field of Enterprise Architecture by using

variable resources to investigate What EA is, Who practices EA, Why EA is important to the IT

industry and When organisations should employ any of the standards to enable them achieve their

strategic goals. Enterprise Architecture has existed for about 20 years and its importance gets bigger

as the need for Information systems and technology gets bigger. Over time, the inefficiencies

associated to managing information Technology systems became problematic for many

organisations as too much money was being spent. The rather expensive IT systems were unable to

sync with business objectives and so made it difficult for many organisations to realise their goals. In

the words of Bente et al (2012), EA comes with a promise: Simplify IT.

The idea of implementing EA in an organisation is to be able to control cost and associated

complexities of Information Technology while supporting the anticipated competitiveness and

change for the business. Many IT experts define EA along the lines of simplifying IT application to

business, however many organisations take a tailored stance on what it means to their enterprise

taking into account their business needs, political culture and position of IT in their enterprise.

The review shows that a lot of frameworks have been developed by various experts to support and

make the alignment between Information technology and business transparent. One such

framework investigated is the Zachman framework.

Engaging enterprise architecture however is not exactly a smooth ride as it requires top level

sponsorship, suitable and experienced resources a bunch of governance policies that could shake

and challenge an organisations status quo. An enterprise architect would therefore have to be a

person who has variety of skills both technical and management to be able to influence the change

that is necessary to meet the organisations overall strategic goal.

When EA is in full force and working as it should, IT cost is reduced, failure in IT programmes

diminish, top management receive the accurate information they require from the system at the

right time and companies are more able change with the times.

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6 Reference Bernard, S. A. 2001. Evaluating Clinger-Cohen Act compliance in federal agency chief information

officer positions.

Bernard, S. A. 2005. An introduction to enterprise architecture. [Bloomington, IN]: AuthorHouse.

Bhagwat, R. and Sharma, M. 2007. Information system architecture: a framework for a cluster of

small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Production Planning \& Control, 18 (4), pp. 283--296.

Collins, F. C. and De Meo, P. 2011. Realizing the business value of enterprise architecture through

architecture building blocks. Coherency Management: Architecting the Enterprise for Alignment,

Agility and Assurance, p. 333.

Fowler, M. 2003. Patterns of enterprise application architecture. Boston: Addison-Wesley.

Iso-architecture.org. 2014. ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010: Defining "architecture". [online] Available at:

http://www.iso-architecture.org/ieee-1471/defining-architecture.html [Accessed: 11 Feb 2014].

Langenberg, K. and Wegmann, A. 2004. Enterprise architecture: What aspects is current research

targeting. Laboratory of Systemic Modeling, Lausanne.

Lankhorst, M. 2013. Enterprise architecture at work. Heidelberg: Springer.

Malveau, R. C. and Mowbray, T. J. 2004. Software architect bootcamp. Upper Saddle River, NJ:

Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference.

Minoli, D. 2008. Enterprise architecture A to Z. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

O'rourke, C., Fishman, N. and Selkow, W. 2003. Enterprise architecture. Boston, Mass: Course

Technology.

Raadt, B. V. D. 2011. Enterprise Architecture Coming of Age: Increasing the Performance of an

Emerging Discipline. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit.

Smith, K. L. and Graves, T. 2011. An introduction of PEAF. Great Notley: Pragmatic EA Ltd.

Sowa, J. F. and Zachman, J. A. 1992. Extending and formalizing the framework for information

systems architecture. IBM systems journal, 31 (3), pp. 590--616.

Spewak, S. H. and Hill, S. C. 1993. Enterprise architecture planning: developing a blueprint for data,

applications and technology. QED Information Sciences, Inc..

Strano, C. and Rehmani, Q. 2007. The role of the enterprise architect. Information systems and e-

business management, 5 (4), pp. 379--396.

Wegmann, A., Balabko, P., L\^E, L., Regev, G. and Rychkova, I. 2005. A Method and Tool for Business-

IT Alignment in Enterprise Architecture. 2005.

Van Der Raadt, B., Bonnet, M., Schouten, S. and Van Vliet, H. 2010. The relation between EA

effectiveness and stakeholder satisfaction. Journal of Systems and Software, 83 (10), pp. 1954--1969.

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Van der Raadt, B,. Schouten, S. van Vliet, H. - Stakeholder Perception of Enterprise Architecture,

2008 Springer .Journal of Systems and Software pp. 19-34

Zachman, J. A. 1997. Enterprise architecture: The issue of the century. Database Programming and

Design, 10 (3), pp. 44--53.

Zachman, J. A. 1986. A framework for information systems architecture. Los Angeles, Calif.: IBM Los

Angeles Scientific Center.

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7 Working log book, assignment 2 EA

Fowler, M. 2003. Patterns of enterprise application architecture. Boston: Addison-Wesley.

Iso-architecture.org. 2014. ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010: Defining "architecture". [online] Available at:

http://www.iso-architecture.org/ieee-1471/defining-architecture.html [Accessed: 11 Feb 2014].

Langenberg, K. and Wegmann, A. 2004. Enterprise architecture: What aspects is current research

targeting. Laboratory of Systemic Modeling, Lausanne.



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Technology.

Raadt, B. V. D. 2011. Enterprise Architecture Coming of Age: Increasing the Performance of an

Emerging Discipline. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit.

Smith, K. L. and Graves, T. 2011. An introduction of PEAF. Great Notley: Pragmatic EA Ltd.

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Sowa, J. F. and Zachman, J. A. 1992. Extending and formalizing the framework for information

systems architecture. IBM systems journal, 31 (3), pp. 590--616.

Diagrams

A map of the relationships of software applications to one another

Blueprint for the range of hardware, storage systems, and networks. The business architecture is the most critical, but also the most difficult to implement, according to industry practitioners

Identifies where important blocks of information, such as a customer record, are kept and how one typically accesses them

Documentation that outlines the company's most important business processes

Business architecture

Information architecture

Application system

architecture

The infrastructure

technology architecture

EA

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Impact of the

Zachman Framework

Ability to create and maintain a common vision

of the future shared by both the business and IT

communities.

Reduced solution delivery time and

development costs by maximising reuse of enterprise models

Readily available documentation

for the enterprise

Ability to unify and integrate

business processes and date across the

enterprise

Increased business agility by lowering the

complexity barrier

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Stakeholder perceptions of EA

Executive Board C-Level Executives (CEO, CTO, CFO, COO)

Architecture

Review Board CIO

Business

Strategist/Planner

Enterprise Architecture

Team

Business Unit Manager/

Head of Division

Solution

Architect

Programme

manager

Solution Development

Team

Service

Delivery/Operation

Finance

Risk

Procurement

Project

Manager

Operational Level

Project Level

Domain Level

Enterprise Level

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