Al Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University

College of Computer and Information Sciences

Information Systems Department

Enterprise Architecture (EA)
Assignment # 1
Title :the historical view and evolution of Enterprise
Architecture (EA) concept and its importance

ID Student name

437021055 Anas Abdulrahman bin Rokan 1

Supervisor: Dr.Majed A. Albraithen

1
 Table of Contents

Title page

Introduction : The Importance of Information Technology 3

Historical Evolution of Enterprise Architecture 4

What is Enterprise Architecture 6

Enterprise Architecture Definition 7
The importance of Enterprise Architecture 8
References 9

2
Introduction : The Importance of Information Technology
Before I took about the Enterprise Architecture and how is it start , Let's have a look
to Information Technology Role in the Organizations and how it is important and how
it can help Organizations to achieve their Goals and Improve their Productivity .

Information Technology systems and Infrastructure play a profound role in increase

productivity in Business by Providing some features which can help the Organizations
to do their work in a better way , for Example

Better Communication :information technology gives the Organizations the

resources it needs to communicate quickly and effectively for Example using email
Software and Internet calling serve to accelerate data transfer and communication
while reducing costs.[1]

Improved Sharing of Information :Technology allows information, whether

written or broadcast, to be shared more quickly and with fewer resources. Marketing
can be accomplished by placing ads that reach millions of ready buyers on the
Internet or through social networking sites. [1]

Work Remotely :Information Technology systems give you remote access to your
companys electronic network, so that you can work from home or on the road. This
accessibility allows you to increase your productivity because you can still get work
done, even when you arent physically in the office. [1]

So talking about the features which can help the Organizations we can't ignore the
different business Information Systems that helps decision makers to do their job
based on knowledge they get from the information system for Examples :Transaction
processing systems, Management information systems , Decision support systems,
Specialized business information systems.

Note that , IT implementation can be a valuable tool for increasing workplace

productivity, but without a careful selection of the right technologies for a specific
industry and comprehensive employee training, it can also serve to reduce
productivity, profitability and employee satisfaction. Between new devices and
network services, IT systems can often be a considerable business investment,
cutting into profits if they don't pay for themselves over their lifetime. The return on
investment will depend on whether the technologies implemented are right for a
given business' needs and how prepared employees are to use them .[1]

After this short brief about IT role in business , we going to see how the Enterprise
Architecture started focusing on technical architectures then become more Wide
including the Organization strategies and goals .

3
 Historical Evolution of Enterprise Architecture :
References to EA began to emerge in the late 1980s in various management and
academic literatures, with an early focus on technical or systems architectures and
schemas for organizing information .[2]

John A. Zachman Who was assigned responsibility for the Business Systems
Planning (BSP) program in IBM from 1973, that System was used for analyzing and
designing an organizations information architecture , to understand the issues and
opportunities with the current applications and technical architecture , to
determine what technologies will use to support the enterprise to reach to the
future state , to provide the information needed to the business executives to
making decisions , and to have a blueprint to development of the information
System.[3] [4]

he was the first one who mention Enterprise Architecture in his paper Business
Information Control Study that Published in 1982 , and Became widely
recognized as a leader in the field of enterprise architecture, identified the need to
use a logical construction blueprint (i.e., an architecture) for defining and controlling
the integration of systems and their components .[3]

In 1987 , he published an article entitled " A Framework for Information

Systems Architecture. Based on his investigations in issues of the IBM
Systems ,he developed a structure or framework for defining and capturing an
architecture , This framework provided a classification scheme for artifacts that
describe six levels of abstraction ,the six abstractions are: how the entity
operates ,what the entity uses to operate, where the entity operates, who operates
the entity, when entity operations occur ,why the entity operates , His framework
provides a way to identify and describe an entitys existing and planned component
parts relationships, BEFORE the entity begins the costly and time-consuming efforts
associate with developing or transforming itself.[3] [4]

In 1989, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published the NIST
Enterprise Architecture Model. This was a five-layer reference model that illustrates the
interrelationship of business, information system, and technology domains. It was
promoted within the U.S. federal government. It was not an EA framework as we see it

4
now, but it helped to establish the notion of dividing EA into architecture domains or
layers.[4]

in the early 1990s The concept of enterprise architecture analysis and design
emerged as an overall of information system and how it relates to the enterprise and
its surrounding environment , and has evolved to include views of strategic goals,
business services, information flows, systems and applications, networks, and the
supporting infrastructure. Additionally, there are threads that pervade every level of
the architecture: standards, security, and skills .[2]

In 1993, Stephen Spewaks book Enterprise Architecture Planning (EAP) defined a

process for defining architectures for the use of information in support of the
business and the plan for implementing those architectures .focus in the business
mission and what data required to satisfy the mission, which applications will use or
built to store and provide that data and which technology will implement the
applications .[4]

In 1994 ,one of the earliest attempts by a branch of the U.S. Government, the
Department of Defense, to create an enterprise architecture. This attempt was
known as the Technical Architecture Framework for Information Management (TAFIM)
which was establish to make better align technical projects with business need. [4]

the Open Group selected TAFIM from the US DoD as a basis for development of The
Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), where architecture meant IT
architecture. Right up to version 7, TOGAF was still focused on defining and using a
Technical Reference Model (or foundation architecture) to define the platform
services required from the technologies that an entire enterprise uses to support
business applications.[3, 4]

In September 1999, the federal CIO Council published the Federal Enterprise
Architecture Framework (FEAF) to provide a common construct for architectures by
providing a common approach for the integration of strategic, business and
technology management as part of organization design and performance
improvement . [3, 4]

From 2002/3 until now TOGAF 8 shifted focus from the technology architecture layer
to the higher business, based on four interrelated areas of specialization
called architecture domains :

1. Business architectureDescribes the processes the business uses to meet its

goals

2. Application architectureDescribes how specific applications are designed and

how they interact with each other

5
3. Data architectureDescribes how the enterprise datastores are organized and
accessed

4. Technical architectureDescribes the hardware and software infrastructure

that supports applications and their interactions. [5]

6
What is Enterprise Architecture :
First let's Find What Kind of Enterprise we Mean it here is it small or large or profit or
non- profit organization or government organization ?

Enterprise Definition :
Dr. Scott A. Bernard in his book "An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture"
Defined the Enterprise said :
An organization or sub-activity whose boundary is defined by commonly held goals,
processes, and resources. This includes whole organizations in the public, private, or
non-profit sectors, part(s) of an organization such as business units, programs, and
systems, or part(s) of multiple organizations such as consortia and supply chains [2]

Dr. Daniel Minoli in his book "Enterprise Architecture A to Z" Defined the Enterprise
said :
enterprise is any collection of corporate or institutional task-supporting
functional entities that have a set of common goals or a single mandate. In this
context, an enterprise is, but is not limited to, an entire corporation, a division or
department of a corporation,
a group of geographically dispersed organizations linked together by common
administrative
ownership, a government agency (or set of agencies) at any level of jurisdiction, a
group of government
agencies, and so on.[6]

Architecture Definition :
As described in ANSI/IEEE Std 1471-2000 :
an architecture is the fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its
components, their relationships to each other and the environment,
and the principles governing its design and evolution.

Dr. Daniel Minoli in his book "Enterprise Architecture A to Z" Defined the
Architecture said:
architecture can be seen as a blueprint for the optimal and target-conformant
placement of resources in the IT environment for the ultimate support of the
business function [6]

So Architecture represents the structure of the system embodied by its components,

their relationships to each other, their relationships with the environment, and the
. principles guiding the systems design and evolution

7
 Also the Architecture help to Ensure compliance to standards, Ensure the parts fit
together ,Achieve overall design goals at the lowest cost ,Breaks up a complex design
problem into simpler design problems. [7]

Enterprise Architecture Definition :

MR. Jaap Schekkerman In his Paper " Enterprise Architecture Validation "
defined enterprise architecture as :
Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a complete expression of the enterprise; a
master plan which acts as a collaboration force between aspects of
business planning such as goals, visions, strategies and governance
principles; aspects of business operations such as business terms,
organization structures, tasks, activities and information; aspects of
automation such as information systems and databases; and the enabling
technological infrastructure of the business such as computers, operating
systems and networks[8].

So depend on these Definition above ,we can say Enterprise Architecture focus on
the current State of the organization and which Strategy and Plans and Technologies
will apply to achieve the goals of the organization and reach to the Future State
,That mean the scope of EA includes the enterprises people, processes, information,
and technology and their relationships to each other and the external environment.

The purpose of enterprise architecture is to create a map of IT assets and business

processes and a set of governance principles that drive an ongoing discussion about
business strategy and how it can be expressed through IT. There are many different
suggested frameworks to develop an enterprise architecture, most frameworks
contain four basic domains,
as follows: (1) business architecture: documentation that outlines the companys
most important
business processes;
(2) information architecture: identifies where important blocks of information,
such as a customer record, are kept and how one typically accesses them;
(3) application system
architecture: a map of the relationships of software applications to one another;
and (4) the infrastructure echnology architecture: a blueprint for the gamut of
hardware, storage systems, and networks. The business architecture is the most
critical, but also the most difficult to implement, according to industry practitioners .
[2]

8
The importance of Enterprise Architecture :
The benefits with the establishment of an EA program in an enterprise
can be observed in the different areas ,Let's see some of it :

- EA has the capability to bring together views of strategy, business, and

technology that allow an enterprise to see itself in current and future
operating states[2]

- an EA program establishes an integrated set of IT resource planning,

decision-making, and implementation processes that can better identify and
resolve performance gaps across the enterprise.[2]

- EA enhances resource-planning capabilities and supports better decision-

making.
This is accomplished through communication improvements in respect to
current and future resources.[2]

- EA can help to ensure that the organization remains able to align business
requirements with technology solutions, and enhance inventory, security,
and configuration management
activities.[2]

- EA supports program and project management by enhances the collaboration

and communication between project stakeholders , EA help to identify project
scoping efficiently , and providing a baseline of reference documentation for
business alignment, standards, and configuration management.[2, 4]

- EA improves decision-making by providing comprehensive views of current

capabilities and resources, as well as a set of plausible future operating
scenarios that reveal needed changes in processes and resources

- EA helps to reduce the systems implementation and operational costs, and

minimize redundancy of Data across business units.[2, 4]

9
 - Information systems and business processes are complex and will become
increasingly complex in the future ,so Applying EA can helps to reduction in IT
complexity, consolidation of data and applications, and to better
interoperability of the systems [4, 5]

Even with these benefits mentioned above , there are risk of creating EA , why ?
because developing detailed EA documentation that covers strategy, business, and
technology within each area of the enterprise can be time consuming and costly. also
Hiring and/or training architects and supporting analysts is one element of the cost.
Another cost element is the time it takes line of business managers and support staff
away from their normal work. so the risk is if the stakeholders will not be used the EA
because they have lack of understanding to the concept of EA or its perceived value
.[2]

References :

1. Kyra Sheahan , D.M. What Are the Advantages of Information Technology in

Business? 2015.
2. Bernard, S.A., An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture. 2012,
AuthorHouse.
3. MANAGEMENT, U.S.O.O.P. Brief History of Architecture Frameworks. 2006.
4. Wikipedia.
5. Webb, B. and S. Young Enterprise Architecture. 2007.
6. Minoli, D., Enterprise Architecture A to Z. 2008, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
7. Giachetti, R.E. Enterprise Architecture. 2015.
8. Schekkerman, J. Enterprise Architecture Validation. 2003. 29.

10