Enterprise Architecture Overview

Enterprise Architecture has emerged as a critical discipline to ensure that an enterprise and the organizations it comprises have an understanding of the significant elements from which it is made, from strategic goals through to the business and information technology components that assist in achieving those goals. The discipline also allows enterprises to create architectures that 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 competitive forces, Enterprise Architecture as a discipline is vital.

The profession of Enterprise Architect is rarely taught as a separate degree course at tertiary institutions, and it also suffers under the proliferation of large, conflicting and at times 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'.

This section addresses the questions:

• What is Enterprise Architecture?
• Where does it fit into the context of other disciplines?
• What are the characteristics of good architecture?

The section also discusses the levels, types and styles of architecture that exist, and describes the notational mechanisms that are at an architect's disposal.

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