Modelling enterprise-wide architecture using EA

[Susan F]

I am evaluating the use of EA to model all the applications across our entire business, and the interfaces between them. I can't seem to find a way to do this - there doesn't seem to be an "application" or "system" object type that I can use. Can someone tell me whether EA is designed for this purpose or is it meant to only model a single system?

There are several other things we are trying to achieve but I will start here and see how we go....!! If anyone has any thoughts on true enterprise-wide architecture modelling, please feel free to comment! Thanks.

[jeshaw2]

I see this primarily as a UML Question....  I offer the following thoughts, if you need more, let me know..

UML approaches:

• Think of each application system as an object  in the Enterprise domain.  If your organization is of a Divisionalized form with multiple instances of each application; then the application may be abstracted as a class.
• The protocols between the applications can then be defined as a set of Use Cases, depending upon the client/server relationship between them.  
• The clients would be system actors modeled in rectangular form; the server usage modeled as an ellipse.
  UML Interaction and/or Sequence diagrams could define inter-application communications.  Nodes on a Deployment diagram could document their distribution across the Enterprise Resources.

EA approaches
If you really need special shapes for the applications, you can resort to the shape scripting features of EA.

Hope this gives you some ideas.....
Jim

[Transition Technologies]

Hi Susan,
You can also use Business Process Model to describe main activities with inputs and outputs from it. You can also specify your Goal there.
Using Resource Overview you can show the responsibilities of given person in given project. That is a nice hierarchical structure.
All in all every UML Model (13 available + few more added in EA) can help you to describe the whole structure of your company..If you have problems with describing given process or object's interaction with one model try to use another.  

[JohnDoe]

I am evaluating the use of EA to model all the applications across our entire business, and the interfaces between them. I can't seem to find a way to do this - there doesn't seem to be an "application" or "system" object type that I can use. Can someone tell me whether EA is designed for this purpose or is it meant to only model a single system?

Hello Susan,

at the moment, me and my team are about to track down an amount of interfaces in locations in different countries. The only possibility that we have is to use a respository such as EA. We start by defining units, locations, groups, applications, processes and interfaces between them. There are two perspectives: Business Perspective, where you should model the processes and system landscapes, which are the boundaries around parts of these processes. EA is a superb tool to achieve this. If the EA models are not enough (e.g. if you need special graphic symbols), simply import your own graphic assets and associate them with EA's built classes.

IMHO, EA is one of the best tools, since it starts by modeling processes and systems and let you add requirements, features, risks, issues and many more. You can collect everything in a local EAp file (which is an Access MDB, simply open it with Access) or store it in a MySQL or Oracle database, when more staff on your team get involved. EA is able to grow with its users.

The price is another thing: You get 1 license of Rational Rose for the price of 50 EA licenses.

Best wishes
Bernd