LCS 3202 ENTERPRISE

ARCHITECTURE AND
MANAGEMENT
Kwagalakwe Grace
[email protected]
 Course Description
 This course explores the design, selection, implementation and management
of enterprise IT solutions. The focus is on applications and infrastructure and
their fit with the business.

 The course will address enterprise architecture concerns both within and
beyond the organizations, with attention paid to managing risks and security
within a business enterprise.

 Students will also perfect their ability to communicate technology

architecture strategies concisely to a general business audience.
Introduction
 Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) emerged as a way to deal
with organizational complexity and change in an increasingly turbulent
business environment.

 EAM assists organizations in maintaining the flexibility, cost-efficiency and

transparency of their technical infrastructure, information systems,
business processes and organizational structures in line with their business
goals. EAM therefore ensures that corporate change can be implemented
swiftly and easily.
 EAM as a management discipline that helps to systematically design and
develop an organization according to its strategic objectives and vision.
 Introduction: Enterprise
 An Enterprise may be defined as any collection of organizations that has a
common set of goals and a set of identifiable business metrics. In that
sense, an enterprise can be a government agency, a whole corporation, a
division of a corporation, a single department, or a group of geographically
distant organizations linked together by common ownership.

 An Enterprise may have multiple departments, branches, or subsidiaries,

and it typically uses information technology systems and software to manage
its operations and data.

 These systems are designed to help the enterprise streamline its operations,
manage its resources, and improve its overall efficiency and productivity.
Introduction: Architecture
 An Architecture is a structured framework or design for a system or
entity. It provides a high-level view of the components, structure, and
interactions of a system, and defines the relationships between those
components. An architecture may be used to guide the development,
implementation, and maintenance of a system or entity.

 The ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 (International standard for architecture

descriptions of systems and software) standard defines Architecture as:
'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.
 Introduction: Enterprise Architecture
 Enterprise Architecture is the process of translating your business strategy
into enterprise change by identifying, communicating, planning for and
enabling your organization’s evolution (gradual development) to the desired
future state.

 According to the Systems & Software Consortium (TEAF, 2005, TEAF.

Systems & Software Consortium. Available on:
www.software.org/pub/architecture/teaf.asp, “An Enterprise Architecture
relates organizational mission, goals, and objectives to work processes and to
the technical or IT infrastructure required to execute them.”
Introduction: Enterprise Architecture
 Enterprise architecture (EA) can also be understood as the fundamental
organization of an enterprise as a socio-technical system, along with the
principles governing its design and development.

 An EA includes all relevant components for describing an enterprise,

including its business and operating model, organizational structure,
business processes, data, applications and technology.

 In the course of documenting the actual Enterprise Architecture, an EA

model is created.
Introduction

 A model is a representation of an object or a system. Models are used in

science to help explain how something works or to describe how
something is structured. Some examples are physical models,
mathematical models, and conceptual models.

 A Model is a reproduction of a relevant part of reality which contains the

essential aspects to be investigated. Relevance depends on stakeholders
and their concerns.

E.g. House plan is a model, and constructed house is the real thing.
Introduction
An Architecture Model represents a specific part of an Architecture, i.e. a View
on the Architecture. Examples of Models:

 The model of the order process of the company,

 the organization structure of a specific company

 the model of the customer data. (Example of a university registration data

model)

A complete set of EA models, objects, and artifacts will include the following
components:

 Strategic direction - Creates a vision for the enterprise that will guide the
development of each architecture component.
Cont.
 Business architecture - Describes the current and target business
environments, focusing on the business processes and operations of the
enterprise.

 System architecture - Defines what kinds of application systems are

relevant to the enterprise and describes the applications as logical groups
of capabilities that manage the information and support the business
processes defined in the Business Architecture.

 Technology architecture - Identifies technology principles and defines

the technology platforms and the distribution of data and applications.
Introduction: View and View points
 Views and Viewpoints are a means to specify which part of an Architecture
Description is of relevance.

 View: Part of an architecture description which represents a specific aspect

of an EA . Views are used to provide stakeholders with a clear understanding
of different organization dimensions.eg business processes, information
systems.

 Viewpoint. Define the perspectives or concerns from which the views are
created. The viewpoint determines the concepts, relationships, models, and
visualizations that should be provided by the view.

 NB: A View is what you see and view point is where you are looking from.
Enterprise Architecture Layers

1. The strategy layer

 Describes the positioning of an enterprise (or its business units) at a

high level of abstraction and is developed once the business strategy
is defined.

2. The organisation and process layer

 Specifies a firm’s organisational structure and its process

organisation. It comprises static (structural) aspects, for example,
departments and other organisational units and roles, as well as
dynamic (flow) aspects, for example, business processes and task
Enterprise Architecture Layers
The information systems layer.

 Describes how information is processed and shared electronically within and

across organisations. This layer can be further broken down into an application
layer, a data layer, and an integration layer:

– The application layer describes the main software components that implement
the business logic in order to support business processes.

– The data layer describes how key business information (such as product,
customer or supplier data) is represented and implemented in databases.

– The integration layer describes how applications share, or could share, data and
functions with other applications and databases. This layer comprises interfaces,
protocols and integration components.
Enterprise Architecture Layers

The technology or infrastructure layer

 Contains the computing services that form the enterprise’s technical

infrastructure. The technical infrastructure is realized by computer
and communication devices, as well as by system software, which is
this layer’s key artefacts.

 Finally, the People and competencies layer represents the people

and competencies required to develop and operate an enterprise
architecture.
Enterprise Architecture Benefits

 Operation Efficiency-can provide current cost reduction, market

speed, and/or quality benefits, e.g. elimination of complex, costly
processes between systems (Systems Architecture & Technology
Architecture).

 Process Effectiveness- Can provide process improvement

opportunities, and potentially, current revenue generation benefits
(Business Architecture/its processes and System Architecture). Here
EA emphasizes are currently performed and process improvement
scenarios and how software system (application/data) are used to
implement specific portions of the processes.
Enterprise Architecture Benefits

 Opportunity Creation-Can provide future revenue generation benefits

and/or implementation of new strategic initiatives. E.g. Using the EA
models to explain the business, assess the impact of business changes,
and ensure that long-range systems plans complement the business plans.

 Automation Efficiency- Can provide future cost reduction benefits by

aligning technology planning to the strategies of the organization. The EA
could be used to assess the benefits and impact of new systems and
emerging technologies. E.g. to focus the organization on the strategic use
of a specific technology, like mobile platforms.
Enterprise Architecture Benefits

 Enterprise Architecture to create roadmaps that show how the

enterprise can be transitioned from its baseline (current) state to a
target (future) state. i.e. an organization have an understanding of the
significant elements from which it is made, from strategic goals down to
business and information technology components that assist in achieving
those goals.

 If properly executed, EA can help bridge the gap between business and
Information Technology (IT) and enable your organization leaders to make
better informed decisions.
Ways/Steps of building an EA

1. Define “Enterprise” scope. E.g. a whole corporation, a division of a

corporation or a single department. Based upon the scope of the

“enterprise,” the current strategic direction must also be documented. It
may be mapped to the current architecture components, as well as being
used to drive the discussions concerning future strategic direction.

2. Determine Future Strategic Direction- this creates a vision for the

enterprise that will guide the development of each architecture component.
Strategic direction can be based on customer needs/accessibility, products
or services. Strategic positioning means performing different activities from
rivals or performing similar activities in different ways.
Ways/Steps of building an EA

3. Document the current Architecture- This should include

-The current Business Architecture describing the current business

environment and business processes, defining how work is currently
done.

-The current System Architecture-defining the current application

systems that are relevant to the enterprise’s desired future state and
describing.

Once the current architecture components are defined, the current EA

benefits can be realized.
Ways/Steps of building an EA
4. Design the Future Architecture
The future architecture includes the future Business, System and Technology
Architectures as follows:
 The future Business Architecture describes the future business
environments and how business processes and work will be done in the
future to support the vision.
 The future System Architecture defines what kinds of application
systems will be relevant to the enterprise and describes the
applications as logical groups of capabilities that manage the
information and support the business functions defined in the future
Business Architecture.
 The future Technology Architecture identifies future technology
principles and defines the technology platforms that will be required
and the anticipated distribution of data and applications.
Ways/Steps of building an EA
5. Perform Gap Analysis
 With the current and future architectures defined, gap analysis can be
performed to identify the changes that will be required within the enterprise.
 The gap analysis between the current and future Business Architectures will
yield the process improvements that will be required within the enterprise.
 The gap analysis between the current and future System Architectures will
identify the system enhancements required to support the future strategic
direction.
 And finally, the gap analysis between the current and future Technology
Architectures will highlight the changes that will need to be implemented
within the enterprise.
Ways/Steps of building an EA
6.Evaluate Strategic Return On Investment (ROI)

 Identify the costs, timing, risks and resource requirements for the
process improvements, system enhancements and infrastructure
changes. The sum of these three sets of changes then represents the
total cost, timing, risk and resources needed by the enterprise to support
the future strategic direction.

 If calculated ROI for a strategic direction is acceptable to the enterprise,

plans may be made to implement the recommended changes.

 If the ROI is not acceptable, the enterprise may chose to analyze

alternative strategic directions to find a more suitable result.