The story of EA was started in 1987 by J.A. Zachman with the publication of “A Framework for Information Systems Architecture” in IBM Systems Journal. In these documents, Zachman explained the vision of the enterprise architecture and the road map on the basis of next years and aimed to solve the increasing confusion in the decentralized systems. As Zachman said: “The cost involved and the success of the business depending increasingly on its information systems require a disciplined approach to the management of those systems.”
Zachman's vision was that business value and agility could be accomplished through a holistic approach to the system architecture that clearly dealt with every important issue from every major perspective. The multiple point of view to architect systems is what Zachman defines as an information system.
Zachman framework was a major influence on one of the earliest attempts by a branch of the U.S. Government, the Department of Defense (DoD), to create enterprise architecture. This attempt was known as the Technical Architecture Framework for Information Management (TAFIM or DoDAF, Department of Defense Architecture Framework) and was introduced in 1994.
TAFIM also attracted attention by the US Congress, where enterprise architectural methods could align commercial needs with their technical projects. Then, in 1996, the Information Technology Management Reform Act was issued, requiring all federal agencies to take steps to improve IT investment efficiency. With this law, a council was formed with CIO level participants from all governmental parts. The output of this council in 1999 was the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF), which included some innovative ideas such as “structured architectures” focusing on subsets of large organizations. Over time, the use rates of this framework and the failure of the implementation of large institutions, including the confusion has created.
In 1998, TAFIM was officially retired by the DoD. The work done on TAFIM was turned over to The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF). The original development first version of TOGAF was based on the TAFIM. The DoD gave The Open Group explicit permission and encouragement to create TOGAF standard by building on the TAFIM, which itself was the result of many years of development effort. The TOGAF standard is developed and maintained by members of The Open Group, working within the Architecture Forum.
TOGAF advocates and uses a systematic methodology based on other frameworks. The organizations and individuals are free to reach and use TOGAF. So you can bring it to life, making your own design according to your organization that you want. Using TOGAF system, it will be able to obtain results in harmony with building blocks.
Although TOGAF does not recognize itself as a framework, TOGAF is actually an Architectural Development Method (ADM). ADM is a prescription of building architecture. Prescriptions can be classified as processes. As an architectural process, TOGAF completes Zachman, Zachman tells you how to classify structures, and TOGAF offers you the process of creating classes.
EA that started with the public sector began to show its popularity in the private sector in time. Also, the private sector has started to take a share in order to carry this structure to benefit all corporations. There have also been other frameworks developed over time.
Which EA framework suits best for your organization? Since none of the approaches have been complete as yet, a blended approach might be a good starting point for many organizations. These organizations can create their own EA framework from the methodologies that provide the highest value in specific areas of concern.
What exactly is provided with these frameworks?
– Displaying of architectural components of a corporate structure in a single model,
– Supporting strategic decision-making mechanisms,
– Taking a leading role in corporate strategies.
– Demonstrating the effects of the changes on architecture,
– Providing documentation in international standards,
– Determining principles, standards and roadmap.
– Reviewing plans and designs, ensuring compliance with standards.
– Visualizing and facilitating the management of the business processes on which systems.
– Reduction of IT operations costs.
– Identifying services that can be reused.
– Thinking the unthinkable, to disseminate the architectural thought within the corporation.
– Risk management and business continuity planning,
– Ensuring sustainable growth,
– Following trends and giving directions to the future.
26.5. Enterprise Architecture Layers
If we compare the organization to a building, we can think that it is composed of main systems such as walls, electricity and water. If you produce this building cheaply and sell it in a way that brings more profits, it is a different capability. Management of each of them requires different skills and knowledge. Combining the layers for the building requires different points of view. Therefore, managing your company's component layers in this way will provide the same ease.
An architecture framework contains information identifying the fundamental architecture constructs and specifies concerns, stakeholders, viewpoints, model kinds, correspondence rules and conditions of applicability. An architecture framework to discover, describe and organize topics of interest about the system at hand; they can further use architecture representation to clarify, analyze and resolve these concerns.
As it is known, a system has various stakeholders. They receive or provide data from the system in accordance with the concerns and perspectives of the stakeholders.
This structure is called the “view” and “viewpoints” in the TOGAF methodology.
The viewpoint is used to define the position that the stakeholder must look for the elements that are related to his / her responsibility. View is defined as what they see when they look at the point that provides the point of view of the stakeholder, and they are usually used with the specific format called the model type in the architectural language.
It is possible to define the EA as a whole of the processes, models, principles and principles used in the design and development of the software and IT infrastructure. An architectural structure is a set of building blocks. The building blocks are defined by the models that form within the viewpoints and views.
EA domains (layers) are:
Business Architecture: Identify the processes that business units will implement to achieve their objectives.
Information / Data Architecture: Determines how enterprise data sources are organized and how to access them.
Application Architecture: Identify the applications needed in the organization and their relations with each other.
Technology / Infrastructure Architecture: Determines how hardware and software infrastructure should be supported to support applications and relationships.
26.5.1 Business Architecture
The standards and processes of the enterprise architecture program will be a critical factor in which the vision and strategic direction of organizations, business objectives and priorities will be transformed into effective technology developments across the organization.
Business Architecture can clearly show how an organization is structured and how elements such as capabilities, processes, and information fit together. Business Capability Modeling is a technique used to represent an organization's business model independently of the organization's structure, processes, personality or domains. It focuses on the ability of the organization to strive to maximize the business value of architectural decisions.
The relationships between the elements determine what the organization does and what it should do to meet its strategic business objectives and priorities. The identified strategic perspective and the organization's focus area are communicated to all stakeholders. The relevant units are in constant communication in order to take necessary actions within the framework of the strategy portfolio.
26.5.2. Data Architecture
Data architecture describes the structure of an organization's logical and physical data assets and the associated data management resources. It is definition of the major kinds of data needed to support the business. In general terms, the production of data, processing, storage, sharing, securing, backing up, is intended to be associated with other modules.
Data architecture describes the activities required to obtain and maintain data that supports the information needed by the corporation’s major business areas.
Data and information are different. Data is the foundation of information. Data is the raw material that is processed and refined to generate information. Information consists of a collection of related data that has been processed into a form that is meaningful to the recipient.
Data lifecycle management manages how to create, classify, update, use, distribute, and archive data and information.
26.5.3. Application Architecture
In the business world, where business activities are implemented with the use of intensive technology, aligning IT functions that enable business activities and the execution of these activities gives corporations significant flexibility in managing changes.
The list of available applications, the features they have, the technologies they use, the resources that support the applications, the hardware and features they run on, the other applications or services they exchange data, and the updates that need to be made according to the new requirements are made in this step. In addition, other catalogs are prepared by subtracting the application topology.
Business architecture and IT architecture relations have been established by revealing the interactions and interaction aspects of the applications and applications that the business functions on. In this way, business capabilities, business functions and other applications that will be affected by the change in an application can be determined and appropriate actions can be taken. By introducing all the interactions of the application architecture and establishing relations with the business architecture, actions are taken to consolidate the different applications that serve the similar business functions, thus achieving significant gains in application development and maintenance costs.
26.5.4. Technology Architecture
It is the layer in which logical and physical technology components are associated with the application components of infrastructure platforms. Networking, infrastructure elements, servers, storage units, communication layer, the technologies used in the network and the improvements that need to be made with new technologies are emphasized.
It is the layer in which the IT support platforms are managed, including products belonging to third-party companies, which run the logical technology portfolio, all applications that serve the business capabilities. Architectural components, platforms and standards of logical technology that will develop or change will be modeled under this layer.
The applications and technology life cycle of all the equipment running applications on are managed here.
26.6. Enterprise Architecture Team Players and Their Tasks
When creating the EA governance, there are positions that will fulfill these tasks. The qualifications required for job descriptions and governance can be listed as follows:
Architectural Team Task/Functions
Business Architects They are teams that design and model business processes and capabilities. They are responsible for keeping the information in the EA tool up-to-date by following the newly implemented or canceled business functions in the organization. They are not usually part of the IT department.
Data Architects They are responsible for setting policies, standards, and ensuring that data are modeled on a logical level. They conduct studies such as data quality and data profiling.
Data architects are responsible for determining the data used in business processes, archiving and deleting data when necessary, and establishing application connections in such a way as to take actions.
Application Architects The most basic task of the application architecture team is to create and maintain the application portfolio, determine the strategy of applications, determine the applications to be retired.
To understand which applications are used in business processes and to understand whether the applications use the business process effectively and efficiently,
To make sure that applications come to live environments integrated with common applications such as performance monitoring, authorization, logging,
Positioning the applications to be purchased or developed within the application architecture, determining the integration points with other applications,
To define the applications and the integrations between them in conceptual / logical basis in application development projects and identify the services to be developed and manage their life cycle.
Technology Architects It is seen as the teams that draw the models of infrastructure systems, determine the rules of standards, which are included in the projects in this sense and determine the future architecture. Senior experts and managers in infrastructure teams perform this function as part of their responsibilities.
26.7. Integration of Architectural Processes Into The Way of Doing Business
It’s all about change.
Whether an EA framework is applied or not, it is essential that the EA is documented. Enterprise architects use various methods, analytical techniques and conceptual tools to understand and document an enterprise’s structure and dynamics. In doing so, they produce catalogues, drawings, documents and models that are collectively called artefacts. These artefacts describe the logical organization of business functions, the business capabilities, business processes, people, information resources, business systems, software applications, computing capabilities, information exchange and the communications infrastructure within the enterprise. EA practitioners consider a collection of artefacts sufficiently complete to describe an enterprise in useful ways as constituting an EA model. EA models illustrate architecture descriptions. In a simple way, they represent different views of the architecture
It is necessary to create an organization that will provide corporate architecture governance. This team should be carried out with a focus on bringing together work, business and IT teams. In this context, it is necessary to establish an organization that will run the enterprise architecture approach in the organization, determine the policies and implement them. EA team should be established to meet both IT and business demands that identify, offer, or present architectural services to meet the needs of all stakeholders. This team will organize the use of different stakeholders, such as project management, business departments, IT teams, risk units, senior management offices, in better cooperation with different perspectives.
It is useful to consider an architecture framework in this context to include an architecture frame and a collection of architecture representations.
A viewpoint comprises conventions framing the description and analysis of specific system concerns. A viewpoint frames one or more concerns. The term concern refers to any topic of interest pertaining to the system. A stakeholder is an individual, team, organization or classes thereof, having an interest in a concern and by extension an interest in the viewpoint and system. To aid the tasks of describing, analyzing and resolving concerns, one or more modeling constructs can be defined as the model kinds for each viewpoint. The constructs of viewpoints and their corresponding stakeholders, concerns and model kinds can be considered as the architecture frame.
Following the approach ideas in describing, analyzing and resolving the set of specific concerns in each of the viewpoints are expressed as the architecture view for each viewpoint. Applying the model kinds defined in each viewpoint to describe, analyze and resolve the concerns consequently result in the creation of architecture models that make up the respective architecture view. Together, the architecture views with their architecture models can be considered as the representations of the architecture.
A common approach for designing a complex system is to decompose it into constituent subsystems. Suppose we want to address the concerns of what the functional subsystems are, across what interfaces they interact and how they interact to realize the desired system behaviors. A functional decomposition of the system can make each of the subsystems easier to conceive, understand, design, implement, reuse and maintain. A component diagram may be used to describe structure of the subsystems and their interfaces, sequence diagrams the way in which the subsystems interact, and state diagrams the way in which the system or one of its subsystems behaves in response to external events. These diagrams and their associated documentation collectively describe and address the concerns of the functional decomposition. The component, sequence and state diagrams are said to be the model kinds for addressing the concerns of functional structure of the system. The resultant concrete models by applying these model types to system decomposition are the part of the architecture models.
26.7.1. Business Capabilities and Functions
It is important to develop capabilities which fit for purpose.
Today, knowledge is considered the most strategically important resource and learning the most strategically important capability for business organizations. However, many initiatives being undertaken to develop and exploit organizational knowledge are not explicitly linked to or framed by the organization’s business strategy. In fact, most knowledge management initiatives are viewed primarily as information systems projects. While many managers intuitively believe that strategic advantage can come from knowing more than competitors, they are unable to explicitly articulate the link between knowledge and strategy.
Technical and organizational initiatives, when aligned and integrated, can provide a comprehensive infrastructure to support knowledge management processes. But while the appropriate infrastructure can enhance an organization's ability to create and exploit knowledge, it does not insure that the organization is making the best investment of its resources or that it is managing the right knowledge in the right way. How should an organization determine which efforts are appropriate, or which knowledge should be managed and developed?
the most important context for guiding knowledge management is the firm's strategy. An organization's strategic context helps to identify knowledge management initiatives that support its purpose or mission, strengthen its competitive position, and create shareholder value. Intuitively, it makes sense that the firm that knows more about its customers, products, technologies, markets and their linkages should perform better. However, the link between knowledge management and business strategy, while often talked about, has been widely ignored in practice.
Many executives are struggling to articulate the relationship between their organization's intellectual resources and capabilities, and its competitive strategy. They do not have well-developed strategic models that help them to link knowledge-oriented processes, technologies and organizational forms to business strategy, and are unsure of how to translate the goal of making their organizations more intelligent into a strategic course of action.
Knowledge-based competitive advantage is also sustainable because the more a firm already knows, the more it can learn. Learning opportunities for an organization that already has a knowledge advantage may be more valuable than for competitors having similar learning opportunities but starting off knowing less.
Business capabilities are the core of the business architecture. A business capability defines “what” a business does at its core. This differs from “how” things are done or where they are done.
Designing the future will be realized by planning the model that forms the basis of corporate architecture.
26.7.2. Demand, Portfolio and Purchasing Management
Digitalization is the driving force for strategic portfolio management. In today’s world where speed is the most important demand, digital transformation is very effective in the products and services offered to customers. Although it ensures that everything goes well and meets expectations, sometimes it can make things difficult.
Enterprise architecture aims to close the gap between business units and IT, ensure that the organization's business strategies, objectives and priorities are correctly communicated to IT and ensure that IT teams act in line with the rest of the organization and that investments and expenses are used in line with business objectives.
EA provides organizations with an advantage in achieving progress by reflecting their strategies to projects by transparent their complex business dependencies. Corporations, systems, projects and demands have become very complex. Architecture-driven project management will allow the differentiation of target and contemporary architecture to match the target architecture. It will not be logical to start any project without drawing pictures of their current and future statements. The path to the transition from the “as -is” state to the future target system “to-be” is an approach that determines the map.
Previous investments should be continuously updated according to new technologies and changing needs. In order to do this, it is important to predict where, when and what changes should be made and to use the IT budget and resources in the most accurate way. In order to achieve this, it should be ensured that complex information systems are defined with business, application, data and technology layers and standards for change are developed.
Just investing in information technologies in the digital world is not enough to succeed. In this context, it is very important to predict where and when changes should be made and to use the IT budget and human resources in the most correct way. In this journey, it is needed to identify increasingly complex information systems with business, application, information and technical layers and develop our standards for change.
It is not possible for enterprises that do not link their business strategies with daily operations and projects. The connection can only be established with corporations’ EA model.
Enterprise Architecture models can make it possible to draw a real-time and accurate picture of the IT, including the flow of all applications and technologies, the relationships between them, the business units and processes of information. From the strategy to the demand, from the demand to the project, from the project to identify the target architectures, the preparation of master plans and budget management is shed light. These projections can be accessed by establishing the correct connections between the components.
Correct reporting methods should be used to show the facts and standards in a better and improved way. Thus, with the optimization of IT investments (CAPEX) and expenditures (OPEX), and transparency in the IT environment, there is a chance that more resources can be allocated to innovation in the field of IT.
Thus, more return is received from the investment in information technologies and the risks in the transformation process are reduced.
26.7.3. Agility
In line with the strategies, the method of realization of prioritized demands may also change. With the prior delivery of the scope of request or demand to the developer, the product at the end of the term may be very unlikely to meet the expectations. For this reason, agile development method can be adopted which includes preliminary evaluations such as determining the points which intersect with other demands and which needs will be done in line with the benefits of the business unit and IT teams.
Agile is a cyclical process, iteration based, where each iteration is like a miniature waterfall process software project including all of the tasks (or phases) necessary to release the mini-increment of new functionality, i.e. planning, requirements analysis, design, coding/engineering, testing, documentation, releasing. While not always the case, an agile methodology used for a software project intends to be capable of releasing new software at the end of each iterations. At this time, the team always reevaluates project priorities. Agile methods emphasize real time communication – preferably face-to-face – instead of written documents. Most agile teams are co-located during the entire software development/engineering life cycle.
With less effort, EA can rapidly increase the level of maturity and to spread a single system throughout the organization with the same information for different stakeholders.
26.7.4. Process Improvement
Isn't the goal of doing business in a high quality and less costly way, rather than making the user tiring and non-guiding?
Today’s main trends; mobility, social practices, cloud and big data impact all organizations in a shocking way, leaving the foot-wearers at risk of extinction. Companies that want to successfully complete their digital transformation need to be able to effectively manage today's trends.
Regardless of which sector you are operating in the new digital world, it is of great importance for the modern enterprises to automate the processes, to manage extraordinary situations and to observe all processes throughout the enterprise.
With business process management (BPM), after the main business processes are determined, it is necessary to find out the sub-processes in detail and to take unnecessary steps, instead of questioning the different systems, conducting transactions over a single system and making wrong operations.
With the process improvement effort of the business architecture, optimized cost management is provided for applications and business processes.
Also, continuous improvement is aimed. It is important to transform, evaluate, change (Kai) in a better (Zen) way. A decrease in the costs of providing a rapid but very rapid development in employees, processes, time, and technology in order to increase customer satisfaction and influence the competitiveness in a certain period of time is Kaizen.
Kaizen; in the process dimension, it is the protection of processes, corrective actions and improvement of processes; in the time dimension, it is aimed to improve the market by changing the costs such as the rapid changes in the market, rapid changes to the developments, and the variety of products, thus making the activities in a shorter time. On the other hand, in the technology, it is dimension, reducing costs, transforming technologies together, simplifying applications.
Predicting where technology can be used more effectively is crucial when planning a new job definition and future investments. It is likely that new functions will be added to the processes carried out in line with the organization's job description. The process of improvement by utilizing today's technology is an investment in the future. Adding new functions to our business may also indicate that there is no need for the old ones. The establishment of the structure of the alarm systems that give us the self-awareness of the situation that can be noticed by these continuous audits can also be part of the model with the enterprise architecture governance.
If the architecture of the organization is not corrected, the process improvement effort cannot make enough improvements. No further improvement can be made and it has to turn to innovation when it comes to the saturation point.
26.7.5. User Experience
It cannot be expected that the product life that is not used by the end user is too long or healthy. This can create negative feedback, erroneous transactions, low rating scores, etc. For this reason, it is important to remember that one of the stakeholders that need to be taken into consideration when creating new products is the end user.
The future structure of the product should not reduce existing functionality. You can suggest different methods for performing transactions, you can use new technologies, but when you take away the tool that is necessary for the user to do the job, then there is a problem.
In this process, if you are developing a product with agile method, it is useful to take the thought of the user for the outputs obtained in the direction of iterations. This user experience tests results will be one of the biggest indicators of whether you are on the right way or not. Cleaning up unnecessary business processes can cause difficulty in giving up the old habits of the user. But when you see that the old processes have been removed in the realization of the work-related scenarios, you will be relieved and stepped in to break the resistance.
Various methods can be applied to get the user's views on your development. This can be done by face-to-face or by asking online questions.
When the user is asked to perform the scenarios defined by the prototypes, methods such as numerical measurement of the answers to the survey questions can be used. These are good feedback for the re-evaluation of designs that extend the business process, if any.
26.8. Strategy and Enterprise Architecture Governance Earnings
Strategic mistakes cannot be corrected via tactical maneuvers.
Strategy becomes a matter of choosing an appropriate industry and positioning the firm within that industry according to a generic strategy of either low cost or product differentiation.
While enjoying much popularity, in no small part because it was perhaps the first attempt to apply solid economic thinking to strategic management in a practical and understandable way.
– Capabilities expected to be developed in line with the strategic goals are determined.
– Strategy maps can be displayed in which investments and developments within the scope of strategic targets can be monitored.
– Relevant consolidated strategic goals and initiatives can be managed in a flexible manner.
– It will be ensured that the demand on strategy and capability maps and application and technology architecture can be identified at an early stage.
Instantaneous reporting of Application, Data and Technology architectural processes involved in the development of capabilities will be ensured.
– Demand, purchase investments and portfolio management to be carried out on the basis of development of capabilities in line with strategic priorities.
– Investment decisions can be made in line with strategic priorities.
– According to the needs of the business project requests will be analyzed and more accurate resource planning will be provided.
– Strategic target-performance measurement can be made by monitoring the strategic development.
– Operational IT cost will be associated with business values.
-Cost savings in portfolio management.