Enterprise Architecture Overview

Enterprise Architecture has emerged as a critical discipline to ensure an enterprise and the organizations of which it is comprised have an understanding of the significant elements from which it is made, from strategic goals down to business and information technology components that assist in achieving those goals. The discipline also allows enterprises to create architectures which will transition from where they are to where they need to be. Now more than ever in this age of digital disruption when organizations can no longer rely on length of tenure in a field or being bigger than their competition as a safeguard against disruptive and competitive forces, Enterprise Architecture is in demand as a discipline.

The profession has in the author's view suffered from not being taught as a separate degree course at tertiary institutions and the proliferation of large, conflicting and at times overly burdensome frameworks and a lack of tool support. This has led to architecture practitioners finding it difficult to articulate or demonstrate the value of their 'profession'.

In this topic the question of what is Enterprise Architecture, where it fits in the context of other disciplines, the levels, types and styles of architecture will be covered. The question of what are the characteristics of good architecture will be answered and a description of the notational mechanisms that are at an architects disposal will be discussed.

Enterprise Architect's pragmatic approach to modeling and the extensive set of facilities available to the architect and others makes it a powerful tool to act as an architecture repository and a platform for creating, managing and disseminating architectural work.