Enterprise Architecture (EA) involves a structured approach to aligning IT infrastructure and business processes with organizational goals. To support this, various artifacts are created that serve as models, documentation, and representations of the organization’s systems. These artifacts help communicate, plan, and govern the architecture across different stakeholders. The main artifacts of enterprise architecture typically fall into several categories:
- Business Architecture Artifacts
- Business Capability Model: A high-level map of the organization’s abilities to meet business goals. It defines “what” the organization does, not “how” it does it.
- Business Process Models: Diagrams and documentation that map out core business processes, their workflows, and their interactions with other systems.
- Organizational Structure: Defines how the company is organized (departments, teams) and their roles, responsibilities, and hierarchies.
- Value Stream Maps: Visual representation of how value is delivered through processes to customers, often highlighting opportunities for optimization.
- Business Goals and Strategies: Documentation of the organization’s long-term goals, vision, and strategies, as well as how IT will support them.
- Application Architecture Artifacts
- Application Portfolio: A catalog of all applications and their metadata (e.g., ownership, technologies used, dependencies, etc.), often represented in an application inventory.
- Application Interaction Diagrams: Visuals showing how applications communicate and interact with one another, often including data flows and integration points.
- Application Roadmaps: Future development plans and timelines for existing or new applications, ensuring they align with business goals.
- Application Functionality Matrix: A matrix that maps applications to specific business capabilities or functions they support.
- Data Architecture Artifacts
- Data Models: Representations of how data is structured and related. This includes conceptual (high-level, business-focused), logical, and physical (database design) data models.
- Data Flow Diagrams: Visuals showing how data moves between systems, applications, and databases, including transformations and data lifecycle.
- Data Dictionary: A catalog that defines all the critical data elements, their meanings, formats, and relationships across the organization.
- Master Data Management (MDM) Plans: Policies and structures for managing key business entities (like customer, product, employee) to ensure consistency and quality.
- Technology Architecture Artifacts
- Technology Standards and Guidelines: Documentation of standard technologies, platforms, and tools the organization uses or prefers, ensuring consistency and support.
- Infrastructure Diagrams: Visual representations of the organization’s hardware and software infrastructure, including network topology, data centers, servers, etc.
- Technology Roadmap: A timeline showing planned technology upgrades, migrations, decommissioning, and innovations to support future business and application needs.
- Platform & Environment Models: Diagrams that show how environments (e.g., development, testing, production) are set up and connected, including cloud infrastructure.
- Security Architecture Artifacts
- Security Policies and Frameworks: Documentation outlining the organization’s security policies, compliance requirements, and standards.
- Access Control Diagrams: Visuals showing how access is controlled across systems, including user roles, permissions, and authentication mechanisms.
- Threat Models and Risk Assessments: Analysis documents detailing potential security risks and the mitigation strategies in place.
- Security Infrastructure Diagrams: Diagrams of security systems, such as firewalls, VPNs, encryption, and monitoring tools, mapped to IT architecture.
- Integration Architecture Artifacts
- Integration Maps: Diagrams showing how different systems are integrated, including APIs, middleware, messaging queues, and services.
- Service Inventory: A catalog of reusable services or APIs within the organization, showing what functionalities are exposed for integration.
- Event Flow Diagrams: Visual representations of how events trigger actions and propagate through systems, especially important in event-driven architectures.
- Governance Artifacts
- Architecture Principles: High-level rules and guidelines that shape the development and evolution of the architecture (e.g., “reuse before buy, buy before build”).
- Architecture Decision Records (ADRs): Documents recording decisions about architectural choices, including the context, reasoning, and consequences.
- Compliance Frameworks: Documentation showing how the architecture adheres to regulatory requirements and internal policies, such as GDPR, HIPAA, or industry standards.
- Governance Process Models: Models and workflows showing how architecture decisions are made, reviewed, and updated over time.
- Strategy and Transformation Artifacts
- Current State Architecture (As-Is): A comprehensive model of the current state of the enterprise architecture, detailing all the components, systems, and interactions.
- Future State Architecture (To-Be): The target vision of the enterprise architecture, outlining future systems, technology, and organizational changes.
- Gap Analysis: Documentation identifying the differences between the current state and the desired future state, including the steps required to close those gaps.
- Transformation Roadmap: A strategic plan with timelines and milestones for moving from the current state to the target future state of the enterprise architecture.
Common Frameworks for Enterprise Architecture Artifacts: 🔗
EA artifacts are often structured using established frameworks, such as:
- TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework): One of the most widely used EA frameworks, TOGAF provides guidance on how to develop and govern EA, including a detailed architecture development method (ADM) and metamodel for artifacts. And ArchiMate: is a modeling language developed for TOGAF.
- Zachman Framework: A taxonomy-based framework that organizes EA artifacts into a grid based on “who, what, where, when, why, how” perspectives.
- FEAF (Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework): Used mainly in government, it defines standard EA practice to align IT resources with business objectives.
The primary artifacts of enterprise architecture range from high-level business models to detailed technical infrastructure representations. They help align IT and business goals, guide decision-making, and ensure that the organization’s technology landscape supports its strategic objectives. Creating and maintaining these artifacts is essential for planning, communication, and governance in EA.