ENTERPRISE

ARCHITECTURE
LITERATURE REVIEW

This paper reviews the literature on Enterprise Architecture, taking into
account the various definitions and attributes to this field of study.



Gorazo
BSC ITMB/ 14/02/2014



1
Table of Contents
1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 2
2 What is Enterprise Architecture (EA) .............................................................................................. 3
2.1 Role of Enterprise Architecture .............................................................................................. 5
2.2 Challenges facing Enterprise Architecture .............................................................................. 6
3 Stakeholder perceptions of EA........................................................................................................ 7
4 Impact of Emerging Standards ........................................................................................................ 9
4.1 The Zachman Framework ....................................................................................................... 9
4.1.1 Impact of the Zachman Framework .............................................................................. 10
5 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 11
6 Reference ...................................................................................................................................... 12
7 Working log book, assignment 2 EA ............................................................................................. 14


Table of Figures
Figure 1: Common fundamental areas covered by EA Frameworks. .................. 3
Figure 2: Viewpoints of EA. .............................................................................. 4
Figure 3: Macro view of the EA environment. .................................................... 5
Figure 4: Key Stakeholders of EA and their organisational level. ........................ 7
Figure 5: 1992 Zachman Framework .......................................................... 9
Figure 6: Impact of the Zachman Framework on the enterprise. ..................... 10










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1 Introduction
The generic mission of every organisation is to exist tomorrow and be relevant to their customer
base. The only means of making sure that they survive difficult times is by focusing on creating long
term value and being ready to change to take advantage of opportunities should any arise (Collins &
De Meo, 2011). According to (Zachman, 1997), as part of the competences required by organizations
to create value now and in the future, they must align the operations of the enterprise including the
information systems, processes, and business functions with its strategic direction and business
goals. This method of aligning information technology and business within the organization is
referred to as Enterprise Architecture.
Langenberg & Wegmann (2004) defines Enterprise Architecture as blueprint that documents all the
information systems within the enterprise, their relationships, and how they interact to fulfil the
enterprises mission. EA is aligning information technology with business hierarchically (Wegmann &
Balabko et al., 2005). Enterprise Architecture entails the use of frameworks that support enterprise
analysis from the level of business to the level of Information technology. Zachman in 1987
introduced the Framework for Information Systems Architecture which is mostly regarded as the
initial step towards the EA discipline (Bhagwat & Sharma, 2007).
The name Enterprise Architecture was however not coined until later in 1996 when the
government of America via the Clinger-Cohen Act directed federal agencies to implement a holistic
methodology to align business goals to information technology. The term enterprise architecture has
aroused a lot of thoughts and interests and is now commonly understood as a hierarchical approach
to aligning business and information technology. Some very popular frameworks are The Open
Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), The Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF),
Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture, and The Gartner Methodology. According to
(O'rourke et al., 2003) All of these different frameworks were initiated with the intention of solving
two problems:
The Complexity of Systems Huge sums of money were being spent by organisations to
build IT systems; and
Poor alignment of Business Organisations found it continuously difficult to align the rather
high cost of IT systems with business need.
The consensus before the advent of enterprise architecture was that less value was been attained
from the increasing complexity and cost of IT systems (Bernard, 2005). Currently, the cost of
installing and managing IT systems has increased which means companies are no longer able to
avoid these problems (Lankhorst, 2013). Enterprise Architecture is therefore now more needed than
ever before.
This review will explore the current state of the art in enterprise and information architecture, its
role and challenges. The various stakeholder perceptions of Enterprise Architecture will be looked at
and also what the possible impact of emerging standards could be.




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2 What is Enterprise Architecture (EA)
Iso-architecture.org (2014), defines Architecture as the fundamental organization of a system
embodied in its components, their relationships to each other, and to the environment, and the
principles guiding its design and evolution. The bigger picture here then is that architecture which is
a blueprint, offers a macro view of how the various components of a system (be it business or other)
fit in relation to each other. In relation to enterprise therefore, Langenberg & Wegmann (2004)s
definition falls right on point as the blueprint that documents all the information systems within the
enterprise, their relationships, and how they interact to fulfil the enterprises mission. EA aims at
creating a unified and standardised hardware and software systems across an organisations
business entities with close interdependent links to the business side of the organisation which
usually accounts for 90% of the firms strategy and budget (Minoli, 2008). In detail, the aim as
mentioned sets to promote standardisation, alignment, recycle of current IT assets and development
of software across the organisation including sharing common project management methods.
Theoretically, the effect is that Enterprise Architecture will make Information Technology more
strategic, cheaper and even more responsive.
EA has a purpose which is closely linked to the aim. This is to produce a map of business processes
and IT assets and also a set of governance principles which determines how the strategy of the
business can be communicated through IT (Fowler, 2003). Many of these maps or frameworks of
which four have already been mentioned earlier on exist. All of the existing frameworks cover four
simple but necessary domains as shown in figure 1:

Figure 1: Common fundamental areas covered by EA Frameworks. Source: Writers drawing
EA



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An enterprise architecture team must be created to include:

According to (Schekkerman, 2005), the enterprise architecture team must endeavour to have a
business view point, Governance viewpoint and an Architecture View point as show in the diagram
below:

Figure 2: Viewpoints of EA. Source: Schekkerman (2005)
A macro view of the EA environment is depicted in figure 3. The tabs to the left of the diagram are
external entities that affect a firms operation including the industry it operates in, the firms
competitors, the market, the customers, regulatory boards, opportunities available to the firm and
investors. Driving the firm is its existing business strategy and the various already existing business
and IT assets which all falls under the business viewpoint. The Architecture viewpoint circled to the
right enhances the IT infrastructure to boost its ability to support a final stage IT environment that
Chief Enterprise Architect
Business Architect
Information /Data Architect
Application Architect
Infrastructure Architect
Security Architect
Domain Architect
Business Unit Achitect (who focuses on business)
Functional Domain Architect (focuses on the business function)
Enterprise Architect
Solution Architect
Virtual Architecture Team





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facilitates, enables and supports the business strategy. To this effect, the enterprise would have
successfully developed enterprise architecture.
The lower part of the diagram covers the governance viewpoint which consists of industry
mechanisms that help to create the architecture. Some of these mechanisms are the enterprise
architecture standards, the architecture principles, governance tools and the architecture
frameworks.

Figure 3: Macro view of the EA environment. Source: (Minoli, 2008) with writers added impression.
2.1 Role of Enterprise Architecture
From what began as a small pilot scheme within enterprises, EA has now become a much more
appreciated and fully sponsored initiative (Strano & Rehmani, 2007). The growing intend to increase
agility, standardize IT environment and reduce cost has resulted in the rise of EA activities which
mean finding Enterprise Architects to do that job. In America, the need for Enterprise Architects
grew rapidly when the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 was made federal law to exert more pressure on
the Chief of Information (CIO) to improve the management and acquisition of information resources
(Bernard, 2001). Some key roles of EA include:



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2.2 Challenges facing Enterprise Architecture
EA covers the entirety of an organisation not just the technology side which means that
being technically savvy is inadequate (Bente et al., 2012). An enterprise architect must
possess soft skills like; good people skills and very good communication skills, also an EA
must have a good understanding of the business and be able to make good and strong
decisions. Enterprise architects mostly have no organisational powers and if they do its
mostly very little which mean that they face various organisational barriers some of which
are:
Commitment of key stakeholders: Influencing management and personnel to buy
into an EAs proposal could be increasingly difficult making it almost impossible to
accomplish the desired goal.
Resources: Being able to win the commitment or interest of key stakeholders is one
step and receiving essential resources like personnel and funds to support project is
another.
Influencing existing projects: It is more difficult for an EA to influence a project or
scheme which is in motion. In a project which is in progress, the teams associated
are usually reluctant to accept the enterprise architects input. In some cases, to
avoid potential impacts to cost and timelines, the team will sidestep the efforts of
the EA to change the architecture (Spewak & Hill, 1993).
Developing a
technology vision
and strategy
By revising the status quo to detect gaps and develop an actionable plan to achieve the
desired enterprise goal
"Review the target (future) state of how IT shall handle enterprises business processes,
information, technology and applications to achieve the business objectives in phases to
enable business to execute their mission " Pai (2013).
Methodology
lifecycle
An EA team should develop and publish methodology lifecycle application that defines
business applications, and design, develop, deploy, support and upgrades underlying
technology and applications (Pai, 2013).
Define lifecycle (e.g., recommended rapid application development methods) processes and
corporate tasks (e.g., reuse, project management, testing and metrics).
Information &
Data Architecture
It is very important to develop an Enterprise Data Model, especially for the common objects
such as Customers, Products, Orders, etc. It is the responsibility of the Enterprise
Architecture team to partner closely with the business to develop this model as well as data
warehouse, shared data services model and roadmap (Pai, 2013).
Integration
Architecture
"Define the key systems, modules, components and relationships between major
components of the IT infrastructure " Pai (2013).



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3 Stakeholder perceptions of EA

Figure 4: Key Stakeholders of EA and their organisational level. Source: Writers own Drawing
The functions of EA covers 3 functions, according to (Van Der Raadt et al., 2010) which are the
Decision making on EA, the Delivery of EA and the Conformance of EA. For the purpose of this
literature review, the stakeholder groups of EA have been put under four organisational levels as
shown in figure 4 above and these groups formulate their perception of EA based on these 3
functions.



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Based on these functions, the stakeholders of enterprise architecture perceive EA to hold certain
essential capabilities:
Has Vision: that the Enterprise Architect has long term synchronising view and realistic
outlook about the firm and how its business and IT strategy would be realised
Has Functional Knowledge: that the architect is very knowledgeable in software and
hardware components and how they function within an organisation to sustain its business.
Market Trends: that the EA is knowledgeable and aware of current state of the art
innovations and technology within the industry regarding tools, packages and solutions.
Governance processes: that the EA understands the governance structure and formal
decision making processes including reacting to deviations in architecture and exceptions.
Communication: that the EA has an ability to formalise communication within the functions
of architecture and how to make architectural issues clear to key stakeholders.
Collaborative: that the EA collaborates well with other departments so as to outline clear
directions for stakeholders. This also means that the EA is willing and able to liaise with
stakeholders to better understand their problems so as to propose the best solution.
Technological knowledge: that the EA has a detailed and broad knowledge of current
technologies used internally and also about future strategic technologies to be used.
Proactive: that the EA acts decisively when it comes to helping stakeholders to apply policies
etc.
Conformance of EA
"Responsible for implementing organizational changes through solutions described in the target
architectures, complying with the EA policies, and provides feedback on the applicability of the
EA products" Raadt (2011).
Delivery of EA
"Responsible for creating and maintaining these products, and provides advice to guide EA
decision making.EA delivery also validates projects and operational changes to see whether they
conform to the EA, and provides support in applying EA products" Raadt (2011).
Decision making on EA
"This Involves approving new EA products or changes in existing EA products, and handling escalations
and waivers regarding EA conformance. EA products (i.e., architectures and EA policies) describe the
EA decisions taken, and provide a means for communicating and enforcing these decisions throughout
the organization" Raadt (2011).



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4 Impact of Emerging Standards
Many EA standards have been formulated since its inception 20 years ago determined to address the
primary issues of system complexity and poor business alignment. For purposes of this literature
review, the Zachman framework will be discussed to understand its likely impact on the industry. All
of these frameworks or standards seek to solve the same problem but through different means.
4.1 The Zachman Framework
Arguable, the most popular of all the standards in the context of enterprise architecture, the
Zachman framework is widely used due to its flexibility characteristic. This framework unlike many
other standards does not force or restrict users to a set of pre-defined artefact (Pereira & Sousa,
2004). According to (Sowa & Zachman, 1992), Zachman suggested that there are six descriptive
applications and six player perspectives as shown in figure 5.

Figure 5: 1992 Zachman Framework Source: Sowa & Zachman (1992)
The two dimensional grid above shows 36 interconnecting cells where there is a meeting point for a
descriptive application (Data to Motivation) and a players perspective (Planner to User). A
horizontal move along Data to Motivation lines will show diverse descriptions from the same
perspective of a player. When moving vertically however, there is an obvious change in the player
whose perspective is been analyzed in relation to a single descriptive application (Zachman, 1986).
The Zachman grid points out 3 suggestions that impacts on the architecture of enterprises.
The first point is that each architectural product or artifact should reside in a particular cell
and in a case where there is confusion as to which cell an artifact belong, then most like
there might be an issue with the artifact.



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Secondly, Zachman believes that the architecture cannot be regarded as complete unless all
associated cells have been completed. Each cell must contain enough artifacts to wholly
describe the system for a player meeting a particular descriptive application.
The third point is that cells in the columns should have a relationship with other columned
cells. An example is that when the Planner identifies the list of things important to the
business, it should have a relationship to the functions that is the business processes.
4.1.1 Impact of the Zachman Framework



Figure 6: Impact of the Zachman Framework on the enterprise. Source: Writers own drawing




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5 Conclusion
This literature review has covered a wide range of the field of Enterprise Architecture by using
variable resources to investigate What EA is, Who practices EA, Why EA is important to the IT
industry and When organisations should employ any of the standards to enable them achieve their
strategic goals. Enterprise Architecture has existed for about 20 years and its importance gets bigger
as the need for Information systems and technology gets bigger. Over time, the inefficiencies
associated to managing information Technology systems became problematic for many
organisations as too much money was being spent. The rather expensive IT systems were unable to
sync with business objectives and so made it difficult for many organisations to realise their goals. In
the words of Bente et al (2012), EA comes with a promise: Simplify IT.
The idea of implementing EA in an organisation is to be able to control cost and associated
complexities of Information Technology while supporting the anticipated competitiveness and
change for the business. Many IT experts define EA along the lines of simplifying IT application to
business, however many organisations take a tailored stance on what it means to their enterprise
taking into account their business needs, political culture and position of IT in their enterprise.
The review shows that a lot of frameworks have been developed by various experts to support and
make the alignment between Information technology and business transparent. One such
framework investigated is the Zachman framework.
Engaging enterprise architecture however is not exactly a smooth ride as it requires top level
sponsorship, suitable and experienced resources a bunch of governance policies that could shake
and challenge an organisations status quo. An enterprise architect would therefore have to be a
person who has variety of skills both technical and management to be able to influence the change
that is necessary to meet the organisations overall strategic goal.
When EA is in full force and working as it should, IT cost is reduced, failure in IT programmes
diminish, top management receive the accurate information they require from the system at the
right time and companies are more able change with the times.












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6 Reference
Bernard, S. A. 2001. Evaluating Clinger-Cohen Act compliance in federal agency chief information
officer positions.
Bernard, S. A. 2005. An introduction to enterprise architecture. [Bloomington, IN]: AuthorHouse.
Bhagwat, R. and Sharma, M. 2007. Information system architecture: a framework for a cluster of
small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Production Planning \& Control, 18 (4), pp. 283--296.
Collins, F. C. and De Meo, P. 2011. Realizing the business value of enterprise architecture through
architecture building blocks. Coherency Management: Architecting the Enterprise for Alignment,
Agility and Assurance, p. 333.
Fowler, M. 2003. Patterns of enterprise application architecture. Boston: Addison-Wesley.
Iso-architecture.org. 2014. ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010: Defining "architecture". [online] Available at:
http://www.iso-architecture.org/ieee-1471/defining-architecture.html [Accessed: 11 Feb 2014].
Langenberg, K. and Wegmann, A. 2004. Enterprise architecture: What aspects is current research
targeting. Laboratory of Systemic Modeling, Lausanne.
Lankhorst, M. 2013. Enterprise architecture at work. Heidelberg: Springer.
Malveau, R. C. and Mowbray, T. J. 2004. Software architect bootcamp. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference.
Minoli, D. 2008. Enterprise architecture A to Z. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
O'rourke, C., Fishman, N. and Selkow, W. 2003. Enterprise architecture. Boston, Mass: Course
Technology.
Raadt, B. V. D. 2011. Enterprise Architecture Coming of Age: Increasing the Performance of an
Emerging Discipline. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit.
Smith, K. L. and Graves, T. 2011. An introduction of PEAF. Great Notley: Pragmatic EA Ltd.
Sowa, J. F. and Zachman, J. A. 1992. Extending and formalizing the framework for information
systems architecture. IBM systems journal, 31 (3), pp. 590--616.
Spewak, S. H. and Hill, S. C. 1993. Enterprise architecture planning: developing a blueprint for data,
applications and technology. QED Information Sciences, Inc..
Strano, C. and Rehmani, Q. 2007. The role of the enterprise architect. Information systems and e-
business management, 5 (4), pp. 379--396.
Wegmann, A., Balabko, P., L\^E, L., Regev, G. and Rychkova, I. 2005. A Method and Tool for Business-
IT Alignment in Enterprise Architecture. 2005.
Van Der Raadt, B., Bonnet, M., Schouten, S. and Van Vliet, H. 2010. The relation between EA
effectiveness and stakeholder satisfaction. Journal of Systems and Software, 83 (10), pp. 1954--1969.



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Van der Raadt, B,. Schouten, S. van Vliet, H. - Stakeholder Perception of Enterprise Architecture,
2008 Springer .Journal of Systems and Software pp. 19-34
Zachman, J. A. 1997. Enterprise architecture: The issue of the century. Database Programming and
Design, 10 (3), pp. 44--53.
Zachman, J. A. 1986. A framework for information systems architecture. Los Angeles, Calif.: IBM Los
Angeles Scientific Center.

























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7 Working log book, assignment 2 EA

Fowler, M. 2003. Patterns of enterprise application architecture. Boston: Addison-Wesley.
Iso-architecture.org. 2014. ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010: Defining "architecture". [online] Available at:
http://www.iso-architecture.org/ieee-1471/defining-architecture.html [Accessed: 11 Feb 2014].
Langenberg, K. and Wegmann, A. 2004. Enterprise architecture: What aspects is current research
targeting. Laboratory of Systemic Modeling, Lausanne.
Malveau, R. C. and Mowbray, T. J. 2004. Software architect bootcamp. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference.



15

Minoli, D. 2008. Enterprise architecture A to Z. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
O'rourke, C., Fishman, N. and Selkow, W. 2003. Enterprise architecture. Boston, Mass: Course




16

Malveau, R. C. and Mowbray, T. J. 2004. Software architect bootcamp. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference.
Minoli, D. 2008. Enterprise architecture A to Z. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
O'rourke, C., Fishman, N. and Selkow, W. 2003. Enterprise architecture. Boston, Mass: Course
Technology.
Raadt, B. V. D. 2011. Enterprise Architecture Coming of Age: Increasing the Performance of an
Emerging Discipline. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit.
Smith, K. L. and Graves, T. 2011. An introduction of PEAF. Great Notley: Pragmatic EA Ltd.



17
Sowa, J. F. and Zachman, J. A. 1992. Extending and formalizing the framework for information
systems architecture. IBM systems journal, 31 (3), pp. 590--616.
Diagrams








A map of the
relationships of
software applications
to one another
Blueprint for the range of
hardware, storage systems,
and networks. The business
architecture is the most
critical, but also the most
difficult to implement,
according to industry
practitioners
Identifies where
important blocks of
information, such as a
customer record, are
kept and how one
typically accesses them
Documentation that
outlines the
company's most
important business
processes
Business
architecture
Information
architecture
Application
system
architecture
The
infrastructure
technology
architecture
EA



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Impact of
the
Zachman
Framework
Ability to create and
maintain a common vision
of the future shared by
both the business and IT
communities.
Reduced solution
delivery time and
development costs
by maximising reuse
of enterprise models
Readily available
documentation
for the
enterprise
Ability to unify
and integrate
business
processes and
date across the
enterprise
Increased
business agility
by lowering the
complexity
barrier



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Stakeholder perceptions of EA










Executive Board C-Level Executives (CEO, CTO, CFO, COO)
Architecture
Review Board
CIO
Business
Strategist/Planner
Enterprise Architecture
Team
Business Unit Manager/
Head of Division
Solution
Architect
Programme
manager
Solution Development
Team
Service
Delivery/Operation
Finance
Risk
Procurement
Project
Manager
Operational Level
Project Level
Domain Level
Enterprise Level