enterprise architecture this has too many enumerations and lists may be in need of reorganization to comply with wikipedias layout guidelines please help by editing the article to make improvements to the overall structure june 2016 learn how and when to remove this template message enterprise architecture ea is a welldefined practice for conducting enterprise analysis design planning and implementation using a comprehensive approach at all times for the successful development and execution of strategy enterprise architecture applies architecture principles and practices to guide organizations through the business information process and technology changes necessary to execute their strategies these practices utilize the various aspects of an enterprise to identify motivate and achieve these changes practitioners of enterprise architecture enterprise architects are responsible for performing the analysis of business structure and processes and are often called upon to draw conclusions from the information collected to address the goals of enterprise architecture effectiveness efficiency agility and durability overview in the enterprise architecture literature and community there are various perspectives in regards to the meaning of the term enterprise architecture as of 2012 no official definition exists rather various organizations public and private promote their understanding of the term consequently the enterprise architecture literature offers many definitions for the term enterprise architecture some of which are complementary others are nuances and others yet are in opposition the mit center for information systems research mit cisr in 2007 defined enterprise architecture as the specific aspects of a business that are under examination enterprise architecture is the organizing logic for business processes and it infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the companys operating model the operating model is the desired state of business process integration and business process standardization for delivering goods and services to customers the enterprise architecture body of knowledge defines enterprise architecture as a practice which analyzes areas of common activity within or between organizations where information and other resources are exchanged to guide future states from an integrated viewpoint of strategy business and technology it analysis firm gartner defines the term as a discipline where an enterprise is led through change according to their glossary enterprise architecture ea is a discipline for proactively and holistically leading enterprise responses to disruptive forces by identifying and analyzing the execution of change toward desired business vision and outcomes ea delivers value by presenting business and it leaders with signatureready recommendations for adjusting policies and projects to achieve target business outcomes that capitalize on relevant business disruptions ea is used to steer decision making toward the evolution of the future state architecture each of the definitions above underplays the historical reality that enterprise architecture emerged from methods for documenting and planning information systems architectures and the current reality that most enterprise architecture practitioners report to a cio or other it department manager in a business organization structure today the enterprise architecture team performs an ongoing business function that helps business and it managers to figure out the best strategies to support and enable business development and business change in relation to the business information systems that the business depends on topics the terms enterprise and architecture the term enterprise can be defined as describing an organizational unit organization or collection of organizations that share a set of common goals and collaborate to provide specific products or services to customers in that sense the term enterprise covers various types of organizations regardless of their size ownership model operational model or geographical distribution it includes those organizations complete sociotechnical systems including people information processes and technologies the term architecture refers to fundamental concepts or properties of a system in its environment embodied in its elements relationships and in the principles of its design and evolution understood as a sociotechnical system the term enterprise defines the scope of the enterprise architecture scopes perspectives or beliefs held by enterprise architecture practitioners and scholars with regards to the meaning of the enterprise architecture typically gravitate towards one or a hybrid of three schools of thought enterprise it design the purpose of ea is the greater alignment between it and business concerns the main purpose of enterprise architecture is to guide the process of planning and designing the itis capabilities of an enterprise in order to meet desired organizational objectives typically architecture proposals and decisions are limited to the itis aspects of the enterprise other aspects only serve as inputs enterprise integrating according to this school of thought the purpose of ea is to achieve greater coherency between the various concerns of an enterprise hr it operations etc including the linking between strategy formulation and execution typically architecture proposals and decisions encompass all the aspects of the enterprise enterprise ecosystem adaptation the purpose of ea is to foster and maintain the learning capabilities of enterprises so that they may be sustainable consequently a great deal of emphasis is put on improving the capabilities of the enterprise to improve itself to innovate and to coevolve with its environment typically proposals and decisions encompass both the enterprise and its environment ones belief with regards to the meaning of enterprise architecture will impact how one sees its purpose its scope the means of achieving it the skills needed to conduct it and the locus of responsibility for conducting it architectural description of an enterprise according to the standard isoiecieee 42010 the uk national computing centre ea best practice guidance states normally an ea takes the form of a comprehensive set of cohesive models that describe the structure and functions of an enterprise the individual models in an ea are arranged in a logical manner that provides an everincreasing level of detail about the enterprise the architecture of an enterprise is described with a view to improving the manageability effectiveness efficiency or agility of the business and ensuring that money spent on information technology it is justified paramount to changing the enterprise architecture is the identification of a sponsor hisher mission vision and strategy and the governance framework define all roles responsibilities and relationships involved in the anticipated transformation changes considered by enterprise architects typically include innovations in the structure or processes of an organization innovations in the use of information systems or technologies the integration andor standardization of business processes and improving the quality and timeliness of business information a methodology for developing and using architecture to guide the transformation of a business from a baseline state to a target state sometimes through several transition states is usually known as an enterprise architecture framework a framework provides a structured collection of processes techniques artifact descriptions reference models and guidance for the production and use of an enterprisespecific architecture description see also architecture domain benefits the benefits of enterprise architecture are achieved through its direct and indirect contributions to organizational goals it has been found that the most notable benefits of enterprise architecture can be observed in the following areas organizational design enterprise architecture provides support in the areas related to design and redesign of the organizational structures during mergers acquisitions or during general organizational change organizational processes and process standards enterprise architecture helps enforce discipline and standardization of business processes and enable process consolidation reuse and integration project portfolio management enterprise architecture supports investment decisionmaking and work prioritization project management enterprise architecture enhances the collaboration and communication between project stakeholders enterprise architecture contributes to efficient project scoping and to defining more complete and consistent project deliverables requirements engineering enterprise architecture increases the speed of requirement elicitation and the accuracy of requirement definitions through publishing of the enterprise architecture documentation system development enterprise architecture contributes to optimal system designs and efficient resource allocation during system development and testing it management and decision making enterprise architecture is found to help enforce discipline and standardization of it planning activities and to contribute to a reduction in time for technologyrelated decision making it value enterprise architecture helps reduce the systems implementation and operational costs and minimize replication of it infrastructure services across business units it complexity enterprise architecture contributes to a reduction in it complexity consolidation of data and applications and to better interoperability of the systems it openness enterprise architecture contributes to more open and responsive it as reflected through increased accessibility of data for regulatory compliance and increased transparency of infrastructure changes it risk management enterprise architecture contributes to the reduction of business risks from system failures and security breaches enterprise architecture helps reduce risks of project delivery examples documenting the architecture of enterprises is done within the us federal government in the context of the capital planning and investment control cpic process the federal enterprise architecture fea reference model guides federal agencies in the development of their architectures companies such as independence blue cross intel volkswagen ag and intercontinental hotels group use enterprise architecture to improve their business architectures as well as to improve business performance and productivity for various understandable reasons commercial organizations rarely publish substantial enterprise architecture descriptions however government agencies have begun to publish architectural descriptions they have developed examples include us department of the interior us department of defense business enterprise architecture or the 2008 beav50 version treasury enterprise architecture framework relationship to other disciplines according to the federation of ea professional organizations feapo enterprise architecture interacts with a wide array of other disciplines commonly found in business settings according to feapo an enterprise architecture practice collaborates with many interconnected disciplines including performance engineering and management process engineering and management it and enterprise portfolio management governance and compliance it strategic planning risk analysis information management metadata management and a wide variety of technical disciplines as well as organizational disciplines such as organizational development transformation innovation and learning increasingly many practitioners have stressed the important relationship of enterprise architecture with emerging holistic design practices such as design thinking systems thinking and user experience design as enterprise architecture has emerged in various organizations the broad reach has resulted in this business role being included in the information technology governance processes of many organizations while this may imply that enterprise architecture is closely tied to it it should be viewed in the broader context of business optimization in that it addresses business architecture performance management and process architecture as well as more technical subjects discussions of the intersection of enterprise architecture and various it practices have been published by various it analysis firms gartner and forrester have stressed the important relationship of enterprise architecture with emerging holistic design practices such as design thinking and user experience design the enterprise architecture of an organization is too complex and extensive to document in its entirety so knowledge management techniques provide a way to explore and analyze these hidden tacit or implicit areas in return enterprise architecture provides a way of documenting the components of an organization and their interaction in a systemic and holistic way that complements knowledge management in various venues tools the following table lists some notable enterprise architecture tools listed by gartner and forrester research in their 2013 2014 and 2017 reports product vendor headquarters abacus avolution australia bizzdesign enterprise studio bizzdesign netherlands aris software ag formerly ids scheer germany enterprise architect sparx systems australia eas enterprise architecture solutions united kingdom iteraplan iteratec germany leanix leanix germany hopex mega international srl france planningit software ag formerly alfabet germany sap powerdesigner sapsybase germany provision opentext formerly metastorm canada qpr enterprisearchitect qpr software finland system architect unicomm formerly ibm formerly telelogic united states qualiware qualiware denmark product vendor headquarters criticism despite the benefits that enterprise architecture claims to provide for more than a decade writers and organizations raised concerns about enterprise architecture as an effective practice here is a partial list of those objections in 2007 computer scientist ivar jacobson a major contributor to uml and pioneer in oo software development gave his assessment of enterprise architecture around the world introducing an enterprise architecture ea has been an initiative for most financial institutions banks insurance companies government etc for the last five years or so and it is not over i have been working with such companies and helped some of them to avoid making the worst mistakes most ea initiatives failed my guess is that more than 90 never really resulted in anything useful in a 2007 report on enterprise architecture gartner predicted that by 2012 40 of a 2008 study performed by erasmus university rotterdam and software company ids scheer concluded that twothirds of enterprise architecture projects failed to improve business and it alignment in a 2009 article industry commentator dion hinchcliffe wrote that traditional enterprise architecture might be broken at its very best enterprise architecture provides the bright lines that articulate the full range of possibilities for a business even describing how to go about getting there recently theres a growing realization that traditional enterprise architecture as its often practiced today might be broken in some important way what might be wrong and how to fix it are the questions du jour in 2011 federal enterprise architecture consultant stanley gaver released a report that examined problems within the united states federal governments enterprise architecture program mr gaver concluded that the federal enterprise architecture program had mostly failed this conclusion was corroborated by a similar one made by the federal government at an october 2010 meeting that was held to determine why the federal enterprise architecture program was not as influential and successful as in the past a key concern about ea has been the difficulty in arriving at metrics of success because of the broadbrush and often opaque nature of ea projects book enterprise architecture enterprise architecture artifacts enterprise architecture framework architectural pattern computer science architecture of integrated information systems architecture of interoperable information systems john zachman promoter of enterprise architecture enterprise architecture service life cycle somf media related to enterprise architecture at wikimedia commons quotations related to enterprise architecture at wikiquote the dictionary definition of enterprise architecture at wiktionary vtesoftware engineeringfields computer programming requirements engineering software deployment software design software maintenance software testing systems analysis formal methods concepts data modeling enterprise architecture functional specification modeling language orthogonality programming paradigm software software archaeology software architecture software configuration management software development methodology software development process software quality software quality assurance software verification and validation structured analysis orientations agile aspectoriented object orientation ontology service orientation sdlc modelsdevelopmental agile eup executable uml incremental model iterative model prototype model rad up scrum spiral model vmodel waterfall model xp other spice cmmi data model er model function model information model metamodeling object model systems model view model languages idef uml usl sysml softwareengineers victor basili kent beck grady booch fred brooks barry boehm peter chen danese cooper ward cunningham tom demarco edsger w dijkstra delores m etter martin fowler adele goldstine margaret hamilton c a r hoare lois haibt mary jean harrold grace hopper watts humphrey michael a jackson ivar jacobson alan kay nancy leveson stephen j mellor bertrand meyer david parnas trygve reenskaug winston w royce james rumbaugh mary shaw peri tarr elaine weyuker niklaus wirth edward yourdon related fields computer science computer engineering project management risk management systems engineering category commons authority control gnd 78562570 