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A comprehensive framework used to manage and align an organization's Information Technology (IT) software and hardware, local and wide area networks, people, operations and projects with the organization's overall strategy. A strong Enterprise Architecture process helps to answer basic questions like:

• Is the current architecture supporting and adding value to the organization?
• How might an architecture be modified so that it adds more value to the organization?
• Based on what we know about what the organization wants to accomplish in the future, will the current architecture support or hinder that?

Ultimately, this structured process helps to guide an organization to make sound, targeted decisions about how to manage its information-related assets for maximum effectiveness. New software (such as Enterprise Resource Planning) acquisition, major hardware purchases, strategic changes in technology platforms, major software change and development projects, and major organizational changes are all supported by an underlying enterprise architecture process.

Implementing enterprise architecture generally starts with documenting the organization's strategy and other necessary details such as where and how it operates. The process then cascades down to documenting discrete core competencies, business processes, and how the organization interacts with itself and with external parties such as customers, suppliers, and government entities.

Having documented the organization's strategy and structure, the architecture process then flows down into the discrete information technology components such as:

1. Organization charts, activities, and process flows of how the IT Organization operates
2. Organization cycles, periods and timing
3. Suppliers of technology hardware, software, and services
4. Applications and software inventories and diagrams
5. Interfaces between applications - that is: events, messsages and data flows
6. Intranet, Extranet, Internet, eCommerce, EDI links with parties within and outside of the organization
7. Databases and supporting data models
8. Hardware, platforms, and hosting: Servers, and where they are kept
9. Local and Wide Area Networks, Internet connectivity diagrams

Wherever possible, all of the above should be related explicitly to the organization's strategy, goals, and operations. The Enterprise architecture will document the current state of the technical components listed above, as well as a desired future state.

An intermediate outcome of an architecture process is a comprehensive inventory of business strategy, business processes, organizational charts, technical inventories, system and interface diagrams, and network topologies, and the explicit relationships between them. The inventories and diagrams are merely tools that support decision making. But this is not sufficient. It must be a living process.

The organization must design and implement a process that ensures continual movement from the current state to the future state. The future state will generally be a combination of one or more:

• Closing gaps that are present between the current organization strategy and the ability of the IT organization to support it
• Closing gaps that are present between the desired future organization strategy and the ability of the IT organization to support it
• Necessary upgrades and replacements that must be made to the IT architecture based on supplier viability, age and performance of hardware and software, capacity issues, known or anticipated regulatory requirements, and other issues not driven explicitly by the organization's functional management.

On a regular basis, the current state and future state are redefined to account for evolution of the architecture, changes in organizational strategy, and purely external factors such as changes in technology and customer/vendor/government requirements.

Enterprise architecture is a key component of the Information technology governance process at any organization of significant size. More and more companies are implementing a formal enterprise architecture process to support the governance and management of IT.

Enterprise Architecture Frameworks

• Zachman Framework
• DoDAF - The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Architecture Framework
• The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF)

More information

• The US Government has mandated the use of a formal Enterprise Architecture process for all federal agencies with the Clinger-Cohen act of 1996.

• There are several ways of documenting and managing an architecture framework. One of the most popular is the Zachman Framework.

• Several software tools exist to document and facilitate an Enterprise architecture process: Architecture tools list

Reading List

• "Architects' Guide" - BP plc (contact: blacr8@bp.com)
• "Survival in the world of Enterprise Frameworks"