Showing posts with label Enterprise Architecture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Enterprise Architecture. Show all posts

Thursday, 12 January 2017

What is Enterprise Architecture as described by TOGAF 9.1?

 

What is Architecture?

The TOGAF documentation initially refers to the original version of ISO/IEC 42010:2007 (Systems and software engineering) which defines architecture in the following terms:

“The fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution.” [1] [2]

However, TOGAF defines an architecture as follows:

“1. A formal description of a system, or a detailed plan of the system at component level to guide its implementation
2. The structure of components, their inter-relationships, and the principles and guidelines governing their design and evolution over time” [2] [3]

What is an Enterprise?

An enterprise is defined as follows:

“The highest level (typically) of description of an organization and typically covers all missions and functions. An enterprise will often span multiple organizations.” [4]

What kinds of architecture are dealt with by TOGAF?

TOGAF deals with 4 kinds of architecture:

  • Business Architecture
    • defines the business strategy, governance, organization, and key business processes [2]
    • a description of the structure and interaction between the business strategy, organization, functions, business processes, and information needs [5]
  • Data Architecture
    • describes the structure of an organization's logical and physical data assets and data management resources [2]
    • a description of the structure and interaction of the enterprise's major types and sources of data, logical data assets, physical data assets, and data management resources [6]
  • Application Architecture
    • provides a blueprint for the individual applications to be deployed, their interactions, and their relationships to the core business processes of the organization [2]
    • a description of the structure and interaction of the applications as groups of capabilities that provide key business functions and manage the data assets [7]
  • Technology Architecture
    • describes the logical software and hardware capabilities that are required to support the deployment of business, data, and application services [2]
    • includes IT infrastructure, middleware, networks, communications, processing, standards, etc. [2]
    • a description of the structure and interaction of the platform services, and logical and physical technology components [8]

 

References