Sparx Systems Forum
Enterprise Architect => General Board => Topic started by: Viking on May 23, 2013, 12:59:41 am
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Hello, hopefully this is the right category.
My question is, do we really need ArchiMate in our organization.
Pros of Archimate:
- Mechanism for understanding the meta-architecture of a technology environment.
- Intended to model the architecture of the whole program (several systems).
- Complementary with TOGAF ADM.
- Inter-model semantics.
- Based on UML. But it is not consistent with UML (e.g. new notations for the same Thing).
- Notation more expressive than „plane“ UML-diagrams.
- Viewpoints support relations between layers.
A lot of people recommend to use Archimate because of these reasons.
But: I could also model the viewpoints, provided by ArchiMate, with UML. The advantage would be, that we would not need an additional notation and a new tool resp. an extended license (in case of EA). So, where is the point we should not do this?
Viking
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Actually EA provides an Archimate profile. So why not using it?
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Yes, we know, that EA supports Archimate. But this is not the issue.
Actually EA provides an Archimate profile. So why not using it?
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Of course you can use simple UML. Depends on your audience what they prefer.
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Mmh. Could you be more precise? It would help us a lot if you could pick up our arguments.
Of course you can use simple UML. Depends on your audience what they prefer.
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It's less a question of license fees than acceptance by the model readers. If they are happy with simple UML you should go for that. If the are more used to some kind of standardized view (as offered by Archimate) you should take that instead. Personally I prefer standard UML, but if a customer better likes some profile this is perfect too. There's also the way in between where you use standard UML and just use a few stereotyped elements.
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Just FYI - a whitepaper is being reviewed for publication from The Open Group that describes how to use UML with Archimate - should be out in the next 30 to 45 days if not sooner. :)
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How to use ArchiMate with UML is my question. Will there be also a paper like that?
Just FYI - a whitepaper is being reviewed for publication from The Open Group that describes how to use UML with Archimate - should be out in the next 30 to 45 days if not sooner. :)
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A lot of people say, that they prefer Archimate. The reasons are very often the viewpoints of Archimate. My question is, is there a reason, that all these "Advantages" cannot be supported by UML.
It's less a question of license fees than acceptance by the model readers. If they are happy with simple UML you should go for that. If the are more used to some kind of standardized view (as offered by Archimate) you should take that instead. Personally I prefer standard UML, but if a customer better likes some profile this is perfect too. There's also the way in between where you use standard UML and just use a few stereotyped elements.
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I think it all depends on the actual circumstances.
I would start to look at what exactly you want to model. What are the things that you need information about, and how are they related.
Start by drawing a metamodel of your modeling requirement.
Then check the metamodel of Archimate and check in which degree these two metamodels match.
If there's too big of a difference between your metamodel, and Archimates metamodel you are going to have a hard time making it fit, and you probably won't be happy with the end result.
Geert
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Many thanks, Geert. Our concern is, that we would have an additional notation. Although ArchiMate is supposed to be based on UML, there are a lot of differences. This makes it hard to read and create for newbies. UML is well-known and well understood, at least in our organization. So why using ArchiMate if everything is possible within UML?
I think it all depends on the actual circumstances.
I would start to look at what exactly you want to model. What are the things that you need information about, and how are they related.
Start by drawing a metamodel of your modeling requirement.
Then check the metamodel of Archimate and check in which degree these two metamodels match.
If there's too big of a difference between your metamodel, and Archimates metamodel you are going to have a hard time making it fit, and you probably won't be happy with the end result.
Geert
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So why using ArchiMate if everything is possible within UML?
I wouldn't, but I guess the people using Archimate must have had their reasons.
Geert
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I like Geert's response.
First decide what your world looks like, and what parts of it you want to put into EA.
Only then look at what the Wise People have produced, to see if you have missed something.
Starting out with Archimate may mean you spend more time trying to understand what they created, and less time on what you need to accomplish...
...but make sure you DO look at these industry frameworks at some point: lots of smart people have spent lots of time thinking about them.
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Exactly. That's the point. But which reasons?
So why using ArchiMate if everything is possible within UML?
I wouldn't, but I guess the people using Archimate must have had their reasons.
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Ask them, not EA users. There's an official page for Archimate.
LMGTFY: http://www.opengroup.org/subjectareas/enterprise/archimate
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Probably I am too UML-biased. But in the UML-world my impression is that you are expected to use exactly the prescribed viewpoints. There are reasons. One reason is automatic code generation.
I like Geert's response.
First decide what your world looks like, and what parts of it you want to put into EA.
Only then look at what the Wise People have produced, to see if you have missed something.
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I am also a user. But I want to know what I am doing. I suppose other users think similarly. And probably they already found out reasons. That's why I ask them, too.
Ask them, not EA users. There's an official page for Archimate.
LMGTFY: http://www.opengroup.org/subjectareas/enterprise/archimate
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