Approach
- Satwinder Singh
"Practical" approach
Approach to Enterprise Architecture at Columbia University is shown in the diagram below
Implementation of Enterprise Architecture in an institution involves coordination between following three parts
People, the Enterprise Architects and their collaboration with rest of the groups.
Process, Architecture Development process to build the foundation.
EA Framework, repository of the processes, standards, templates and best practices along with enterprise continuum.
EA's relationship with other governance bodies in institution
The diagram below describes the relationship of enterprise architecture with rest of the governance bodies in the institution.
At detailed level EA consist of following sub areas.
Architecture Governance
Architecture Framework
Architecture Artifacts
Architecture Methodology
Architecture Principles and Standards
Architecture Repository
Architecture Governance
Governance identifies the planning, decision-making, and oversight processes along with the groups that will determine how the enterprise architecture is developed and maintained. Typically, architecture governance must be conformant with both the overall corporate governance and the established IT governance mechanisms and structures.
Characteristics of Governance ( Open Group )
Discipline: All involved parties will have a commitment to adhere to procedures, processes, and authority structures established by the organization.
Transparency: All actions implemented and their decision support will be available for inspection by authorized organization and provider parties.
Independence: All processes, decision-making, and mechanisms used will be established so as to minimize or avoid potential conflicts of interest.
Accountability: Identifiable groups within the organization - e.g., governance boards who take actions or make decisions - are authorized and accountable for their actions.
Responsibility: Each contracted party is required to act responsibly to the organization and its stakeholders.
Fairness: All decisions taken, processes used, and their implementation will not be allowed to create unfair advantage to any one particular party.
Architecture Framework
Architecture Framework identifies the scope of the overall architecture and the type and relationship of the various sub-architecture levels, threads and other viewpoints.
Diagram below illustrates the relationship from Open Group
Architecture Artifacts
Architecture Artifacts identifies the types and methods of documentation to be used in each sub-architecture area, including strategic analyses, business plans, internal controls, security controls, and models of workflow, databases, systems, and networks.
Architecture Methodology
Architecture Methodology provides specific steps to establish and maintain an EA program, via the selected approach. EA at Columbia University has selected ADM ( Architecture Development Method ) as the method for Architecture development.
Architecture Principles and Standards
Architecture Principles and Standards are accelerators to implement parts of the overall architecture or sub-architectures, in context of meta EA.
Architecture Repository
Architecture repository includes the EA website, documentation database, and the software applications (tools) that are used for modeling, analysis, and reporting. The repository’s design should reflect the underlying architecture approach. Providing easy access to EA documentation is essential for use in planning and decision-making. This can be accomplished through the establishment of an on-line EA repository to archive the documentation of EA components in the various areas of the EA framework. The EA repository is essentially a website and database that stores information and provides links to EA tools and other EA program resources.