Exploring the future of enterprise architecture: A Zachman perspective

Abstract

-Today, and for the foreseeable future, organizations will face ever-increasing levels of complexity and uncertainty. Many believe that enterprise architecture (EA) will help organizations address such difficult terrain by guiding the design of adaptive and resilient enterprises and their information systems. This paper presents the "Grand Challenges" that we believe will challenge organizations in the future and need to be addressed by enterprise architecture. As a first step in using enterprise architecture as a solution for overcoming identified challenges, the Zachman Enterprise Architecture Framework is used to guide and structure the discussion. The paper presents the "Grand Challenges" and discusses promising theories and models for addressing them. In addition, current advances in the field of enterprise architecture that have begun to address the challenges will be presented. In conclusion, final thoughts on the future of enterprise architecture as a research field and a profession are offered.

The Quest for Underpinning Theory of Enterprise Architecture - General Systems Theory

“…Enterprise architecture originates from practicum. It is a creation of software and systems engineers, and as such, is not built on scientifically testable foundations (Lapalme et al, 2015). One of the thought-leaders of EA stated that it is not even possible to have a single overarching theory of EA (Graves, 2012;.…”

Enterprise Architecture: Transition From IT-Infrastructure Design to Business Transformatio

“…Задача интеграции усложняется растущими объемами (volume), скоростью возникно-вения (velocity) и многообразием (variety) данных, которыми оперирует компания. Особую сложность в задачах интеграции представляет проблема различной интер-претации значения понятий, для решения которой привлекаются семантические тех-нологии и онтологии [Allemang, Hendler, 2011;Гаврилова, 2003;Кудрявцев, 2009;Hinkelmann et al, 2016]. Такие технологии позволят сделать знания об АП частью и, возможно, основой организационного графа знаний (enterprise knowledge graph) [Pan et al, 2017].…”

“…Интересный взгляд на тренды в области АП также предложен в работе [Lapalme et al, 2016]. Авторы предложили три глав-ных вызова ("grand challenges") настоящего времени: (1) работа в условиях сложности и неопределенности; (2) работа в новой ре-альности: виртуальные организации, дру-гая рабочая сила (люди новых поколений, роботы), другие требования к организа-циям (например, социально и экологиче-ски ответственный бизнес); (3) изменение понятий «предприятие» и «архитектура предприятия» (например, интерес начина-ет представлять не только сама компания, но и экосистема вокруг нее).…”

An Improved Model Facet Method to Support EA Alignment

“…Modelling languages such as ArchiMate have been proposed [3] to enable the specification of architectures from business goal to technology infrastructure. However, effective technologies and tool support are still missing [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], especially when considering legacy systems with a bottom-up approach [10]. EA cannot start from scratch, a method is needed to integrate existing information and build the current state (as-is) of a business [7].…”

“…The links between elements of the layers support the alignment of models. From the IT perspective, the field of EA has been focused on achieving BITA or ensuring that IT aligns with the business strategy [6].…”