Sabine Buckl

Classifying Enterprise Architecture Analysis Approaches

Enterprise architecture (EA) management forms a commonly accepted means to enhance the alignment of business and IT, and to support the managed evolution of the enterprise. One major challenge of EA management is to provide decision support by analyzing as-is states of the architecture as well as assessing planned future states. Thus, different kinds of analysis regarding the EA exist, each relying on certain conditions and demands for models, methods, and techniques.

Using Enterprise Architecture Management Patterns to Complement TOGAF

The design of an Enterprise Architecture (EA) management function for an enterprise is no easy task. Various frameworks exist as well as EA management tools, which promise to deliver guidance for performing EA management. Nevertheless, the approaches presented by them stay either on a level too abstract to provide realization support or are far too generic, neglecting enterprise-specific EA related concerns. In this article, we discuss the architecture framework of The Open Group (TOGAF) and detail on its promising but nevertheless highly generic architecture development method (ADM). This article shows how the generic development steps can be complemented by a pattern based approach to EA management providing guidance for addressing specific EA related concerns with step-by-step methodologies as well as with corresponding viewpointsand information models.

A viable system perspective on enterprise architecture management

A number of approaches towards Enterprise Architecture (EA) management is proposed in literature, differing in the underlying understanding of the EA as well as in the description of the function for performing EA management. These plurality of methods and models should be interpreted as an indicator of the low maturity of the research area. In contrast, some researchers see it as inevitable consequence of the diversity of the enterprises under consideration. Staying to this interpretation, we approach the topic of EA management from a cybernetic point of view. Thereby, we elicit constituents, which should be considered in every EA management function based on a viable system perspective on the topic. From this perspective, we further revisit selected EA management approaches and show to which extent they allude to the viable system nature of the EA.

Generating Visualizations of Enterprise Architectures using Model Transformations

Giving account to the importance of enterprise architecture (EA) modeling, we identify issues in visualization handling that we came across during an extensive survey of existing tools for EA management. We then point to the fundamental principles of software cartography, an approach for EA modeling, including a method for the automatic creation of visualizations based on EA models. This approach is based on model transformations, which link the data to be visualized and their graphical representation, thereby circumventing the error-prone and time-consuming task of manual creation of the visual models. A brief overview of a prototypic implementation of this approach illustrates the practical applicability for visual modeling and documenting EA.

An Information Model for Landscape Management --- Discussing Temporality Aspects

Planning, managing, and maintaining the evolution of the application landscape is a focal point of enterprise architecture (EA) management. Whereas, planning the evolution of business support provided by the business applications is understood as one challenge to be addressed in landscape management, another challenge arises in the context of traceability of management decisions. This paper discusses the requirements regarding support for landscape management as risen by practitioners from industry, gathered in an extensive survey during which the tool support for EA management was analyzed. Thereby, a lack of support for this management discipline was discovered, which is caused by the way, application landscapes are modeled in tools. We subsequently discuss how to incorporate these requirements into an information model.

Building Blocks for Enterprise Architecture Management Solutions

Enterprise architecture (EA) management has become a commonly accepted means to guide enterprises in transformations responding to their ever changing environment. Organizations seeking to establish an integrated and effective EA management function are typically faced with a challenging lack of standardization in the field. Although the topic is heavily researched by practitioners, researchers, standardization bodies, and tool vendors, no commonly accepted understanding of the scope, reach, and focus of EA management exists. This fact can be explained by the distinct organizational structures, contexts, cultures, and requirements, which are specific for each enterprise and therefore ask for an enterprise-specific realization of the EA management function.

A Meta-language for Enterprise Architecture Analysis

Enterprise Architecture (EA) management is a commonly accepted instrument to support strategic decision making. The objective of EA management is to improve business IT alignment by making the impact of planned changes explicit. The increasing interconnectivity of applications with other applications and with business processes however makes it difficult to get a complete view on change impacts and dependency structures. This information is nevertheless required to support decision makers. Current meta-languages proposed for the context of EA management provide only limited support for modelling qualitative and quantitative dependencies.

Enterprise Architecture Management Patterns -- Exemplifying the Approach

Enterprise Architecture (EA) management has been gaining importance in organizations, and while EA management frameworks provide a holistic and generic view on the subject, organizations introducing EA management are often left alone regarding the details of the approach. The EAM Pattern Catalog, presented in this article, is a collection of best practices for addressing specific concerns in EA management related to e.g. architectural standardization, application landscape planning, or interface, business object, and service management. It provides methodologies for addressing these concerns, together with information models defining the relevant concepts, and viewpoints for visualizing them. This article describes the structure and extent of the EAM Pattern Catalog, and exemplifies its approach by outlining EAM patterns for addressing architectural standardization. Architectural standardization tries to tackle the complexity of the EA created by historically grown structures. These structures lead to disadvantages as low maintainability, low bargaining power at IT suppliers, or the need of largely diverse skills in the IT workforce.

A Conceptual Framework for Enterprise Architecture Design

An ambiguous terminology as well as a lack of clarity prevail in information systems research when focusing on enterprise architecture (EA) and its corresponding management function. Sound definitions for key terms in the field of EA design, i.e. strategies, principles, and goals, are too often used interchangeably with slightly different meaning. Addressing this situation, the present article proposes a conceptual framework for EA design that covers the aforementioned terms and organizes them along two dimensions, namely their underlying EA conceptualization and their role in the design process. The framework is exemplified and mirrored against state-of-the-art literature in the realm of EA and the corresponding management function. Finally, the article sketches further research trends centering around the design of an EA.

Towards an Agile Design of the Enterprise Architecture Management Function

Enterprise architecture (EA) management provides an engineering approach for the continuous advancement of the enterprise as a whole. The high number of involved components and their dense web of interdependencies nevertheless form a major challenge for such approach and demand high initial investment into documentations, communications, and analysis. Aforementioned fact has in the past been an impediment for successful EA management in practice. In the field of software engineering recently lightweight and agile methods have become more and more important. These methods aim at quickly creating results, while staying flexible in respect to the design goals to attain. In this article we explore to which extent the de-facto standard for agile methods, namely Scrum, can be applied to EA management. Thereby, we derive challenges for an agile EA management approach and revisit current approaches regarding their agility. Finally, we outline how agile EA management can be implemented based on the method of Scrum.